PROMPT: Fate/Destiny

Daily writing prompt
Do you believe in fate/destiny?

I don’t believe. I don’t disbelieve. I have insufficient data on which to draw a conclusion.

PROMPT: Phase in Life

Daily writing prompt
Describe a phase in life that was difficult to say goodbye to.

At least some part of me is always ready to move on.

However, I am missing the phase of human development in which the preponderance of social change advanced the Enlightenment values of tolerance, democratic governance, and rule of law.

PROMPT: For a Day

Daily writing prompt
If you could be someone else for a day, who would you be, and why?

Any successful standup comic. To gain a practical understanding of the downside and the struggle.

I wouldn’t care to be a billionaire because it would be just my luck that it’d be the day people wised up and the revolt began, and I could say the same thing with respect to world leaders.

PROMPT: Biggest Challenge

Daily writing prompt
What is the biggest challenge you will face in the next six months?

I certainly have my ideas, but I’m not going to jinx it or create a self-fulfilling prophecy on the matter. Sometimes the easy is hard and the hard comes easy, and — above all — people suck at making predictions (except in the case of self-fulfilling prophesies.)

PROMPT: Teenage Self

Daily writing prompt
What advice would you give to your teenage self?

Be your authentic self.

And stop touching yourself so much.

But the first advice wouldn’t be understood, and the second would be ignored, so I’m not sure that it would be a productive undertaking.

Dancing Dragon [Lyric Poem]

Photograph of the head of a dancing dragon taken in Melaka, Malaysia.
A dancing dragon winds
through streets of Chinatown.
Head pivots, nods, and turns
as it looks all around.

I hope its golden eye
will not catch sight of me
because its big, curved fangs
do not look so friendly.

You may say its paper,
and those teeth can't do harm,
but there's life in its moves
that's cause of my alarm.

PROMPT: Shoes

Daily writing prompt
Tell us about your favorite pair of shoes, and where they’ve taken you.

I don’t get attached. They’ll always let you down in the end. I took them to the Andes, the Himalaya — places most people only dream of going — but, ultimately, they just fell apart on me when I needed them most.

Nature Overwrites Culture [Haiku]

Photograph taken in Agartala at Gedu Mia's Mosque.
saplings sprout
from the ornate trim
of a once-grand mosque.

PROMPT: Share

Daily writing prompt
Share one of the best gifts you’ve ever received.

Share it with whom? What if it’s one of those “King Solomon cuts the baby in half” scenarios? Alas, life is not always like a box of chocolates. Sometimes you do know what you’re going to get… a dead baby, that’s what.

PROMPT: Broken the Law

Daily writing prompt
Have you ever unintentionally broken the law?

I watched enough Wile E. Coyote to know when someone is trying to dance me under an anvil.