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Prompt: The Dust of Old Bones

I am realizing that when given a prompt, I want to write anything and everything that comes to mind. I am beginning to explore prompts and this one is from a SLC Group called "Salty Scribblers"


  1. Deep in her closet a box lies, the dust has spread over the top and seeped to the sides.

It has moved with her again and again, though only receives a hesitant glance now and then.

But sometimes In her dreams she skips to it, excited to rummage through and release the treasures inside.

As she peeks in, she sees distant memories, fervent feelings, and amusement of all kinds. 

A Pink and worn Teddy Bear with arms open and a rainbow kite, ripped and bright. 

A Snowman sits at the bottom, still frosty and needing a nose. 

The scraped knees and rain puddles remind her of play.

Some nights she takes one or two out and lays them on her sleeping self, testing the fit. 

The beliefs are the hardest to fit. 

Her parents know all and her sister protects no matter her own monster wall.

When she knew her neighbors and danced till light dims.

The box is always new and exciting, curious and surprising, so

When the things fit, she sprinkles them on her sleeping self.

The dust of her younger bones melded into the dust of her old, reminding her to keep hold of the box on the shelf


2. Down Overland Trail We Drive

Past Duplexes, A Dusty Drive-in & Deluxe Vehicles Drifting In & Out 

Bustling near Barns and Abundance

The Layers of the Past Lie Near Underneath

When Bricks of Structure were Laid, The Dust Went Deeper

Colonials Crested Over the Ridge with a Fiery Focus 

Guns Aimed and Hearts Blazed

Assumptions and No Distractions Allowed

Before Overland Trail Their Dust Sits, Fading Year By Year

Lives Taken in Fury and Fear

They were Here

Before Us

Encrusted with their Dusty Bones, Fragmented and Mangled

An Overland Trail Was Created.


3. When the leaves change from green to orange, or from none to lush, I dig in. My legs ache and my chest tightens. I want to run. Whichever direction will take me first. I’ve called it “sad” for so long now, it’s become a layer on my skin. A layer that just lifts sometimes unknowingly and always a little alarmingly. One moment I feel stuck in the dark and the next a beam, no full rays of light surround me. This layer has never been moment to moment, day to day. It felt like a chapter, a chunk of my life taken. Showing moments of myself I’ve named “weak” “fragile. I've taken my own name from them. The layer feels crusty and unsettling, foreboding and unchanging. But then the warmth is back. My name returns and it’s like it never happened…. Then 3 or 4 times ago I noticed. I caught the pattern in action. I knew it would end this time. It remained nameless and shamed, but at least I knew it wasn’t forever. Last year I called it “transition”. It felt easier and less demanding of my pain and dread. It felt less like a layer on my skin and more like a scheduled moment. It became less of me, remaining without my name. It was something that felt easier to just try harder and push through because it’s there and that’s what you do. In my eyes, it was still an ugly nuisance, begging me to slow myself and feel less. When the time came it was checked off and left behind, written on my dusty calendar. This year it came back, unplanned and just as shocking as it had when it was a skin layer of sad. This year I called it a season. A Season that deserves, that needs my name. It can no longer go separate from myself. I still think it’s ugly and rough, but it holds my dust. It slows me down and finds moments of calm, moments of weakness, moments of imperfection that are mine to carry. These seasons do pass but they are my bones, holding me up and reclaiming what it means to be human, with a beating heart, wandering legs, thin skin, a story and a name


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