A Writing Prompt

Maya J. Sorini

Class of 2020

This poem needed to be written, but I wasn't sure of its initial form. I wanted to tell a story by asking a question, and turned back to my Narrative Medicine training: I needed writing prompts. Tell me, asks the poem, about all the most intimate moments of your life. It promises what the page promises each of us: no interruption, no judgment, a steadiness without fanfare.

“Tell me what happened the day you were born. Tell me about your mother, how she picked your name, how it fell in her mouth. Tell me about the first time you held a baby, how it tried to nurse on you, how at fourteen you were already mother shaped. Tell me about the first boy you kissed, about his hands and shoulders and hair. Tell me about your life lived month to month, a constant tipping between menstruation and ovulation, pearls and rubies, falling. Tell me about the heartbreaks, all of them, your fault and theirs, and leave in the man who hurt you worst, who sent you spiraling into a hospital, who packed you tight under earth with no shovel. I promise not to interrupt. Tell me.”