Write an extended metaphor. Challenge yourself to connect two abstract ideas together.

Prompt #121: What is your current obsession? How might/do you see it fueling your creativity? Do you make your obsessions known or are they furtive? Write a creative piece of any format inspired by this obsession.

I get overwhelmed thinking about all that needs to be done in this world. Ending war and poverty and injustices. Getting better candidates elected. Saving the environment. I feel inadequate by how little I do in context of all that needs doing. Should I feel guilt every time I eat because of all who are hungry? How do I work past the guilt without being paralyzed?

I found peace in a motto I live by: We can’t do everything, but make sure we do something.

For me, donating platelets became that something. I started thinking about this as an obsession when I received a ten-gallon pin from South Texas Blood and Tissue. It didn’t resonate with me how many donations that represented until the next time I went to the grocery store and walked past the dairy case. In front of me were rows of gallon milk jugs. I counted out ten and visualized how much ten gallons of platelets would be. Suddenly it went from an abstract concept to an overwhelming reality.

Prompt #124: Come up with one phrase, sentence, paragraph, piece of any length that features synesthetic writing.

Balancing the cruel, serrated reality of this tragic world with the desire of everyone to feel the velvety warmth of peace as they wake. I can't give in to the spiral of despair when there are people who deserve to be seen, remembered, considered and fought for.

Prompt #122: What is your relationship to your creative intuition? Does it flow like a great cosmic river or is it all dammed up? Where has it taken you? Try generating a fresh piece guided purely by your intuition & see what comes out.

My intuition has led me directly upon the path to writing. It has guided my timing and led me to stop for months at a time and then back for a graceful return. I remember using my creativity and imagination as a child as a way to travel in time, places, and beyond the feelings of the current moment. I often wondered what would happen if anyone came across the things that I wrote, would they take it too literally, would they be able to find the truth? I've shared secrets disguised as analogies to some of the people I've once loved. I let them in by exchanging made-up stories of where we would end up. And now as an adult, I find that I retreat to writing to process my realities that are way more complex than those I would create as a child. My intuition continues to lead me right back to those pages where I wished, and even prayed for a clearer day.

Prompt #124: Come up with one phrase, sentence, paragraph, piece of any length that features synesthetic writing.

Dew Drops

When I think of waking up at Grandma's
a still sitting room
plush yellow mornings
pink grapefruit
topped with brown sugar
cool bitter juice soothed
the bunion crust
she dotingly broiled
in her avocado
oven circa 1966
partners in crime
we savored side-by-side
until one went
to the big house
and now
I bubble over
yearning
mornings I’ll never have again.

Metaphors have a way of holding the most truth in the least space.