Turning Towards the Light

This week’s Beth Kempton prompt explored the emotional movement held inside “-ing” words.

I wrote this sitting in a graveyard, waiting to hear the final result of a literary shortlist, thinking about class, fear, the north, bluebells, and what it means to want something while pretending you don’t. 🌱

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Bluebell -watching

graveyard-sitting

phone-checking

trying not to check again

nothing can hurt me here

except maybe hope

because I’m already shortlisted now

and in two weeks

somewhere in Soho

they’ll decide

stomach-turning

train-imagining

ticket-checking

north-missing-before-I’ve-even-left

wondering if they’ll hear my accent

and already decide who I am

but the story I wrote

was about being sixteen

bus-waiting

shaking

trying to survive

while your whole body shakes

and now I feel like that again

sitting with the dead

watching bluebells

pretending I don’t care either way

when really

something in me stirs

people talking about stories

like they matter enough

to be heard

checking my phone

while the bluebells

turn themselves in the light.