Hello Readers, Writers, and Friends,

Happy Friday. I’m hoping it’s a good one for you. My kids have been on Spring Break for a week now. It’s fine. It’s Fine. IT’S FINE! But next week promises a bit of a respite, so I’m looking forward to the quiet. And perhaps the chance to get some solid work done.

Before I give you this week’s prompts, a fun warning. I did my nails. So the typing might be particularly special this week. It might be nothing worth noting, or I may sprain a pinky. Here we go.

Prompts: jealousy, parents who aren’t really parents, and lifeguard.

The wave returns to the ocean

Builds, crashes, receeds

Builds again

And again

A hand waves above the crest

begging to be seen

Beggig for someone to reach them

before the crush overwhelms their lungs

their limbs

I’m supposed to dive in

rush to the rescue

bring them back to the shore

But I would rather trade places

Water replacing the void

Physical weight pressing down on my shoulders

But I’m already running

Feet splashing in the surf

too well trained not to do my job

If only everyone was too well trained

to ever shirk, shrink, run the opposite direction

The waver is just the beacon

The real victim lies below

I dive

Dive liike I did the day they told me

Sink as low and fast as i can

Until sound is a memory

I see another hand

And a foot tangled in a line

I cut him loose

Like they cut me loose

And we rise

Now I kick

not for my life, but his

He’ll hang on my buoy until the shore

is solid under his body

He’ll breathe againg

gasping

But when they ask me who to thank

I don’t even know my name.

I like to follow the prompts wherever the whimsy takes me and this story poem was the only right response today. I hope, as always that you will share where the prompts took you in the comments. And who knows, maybe I’ll have a surprise for you all next week.

Happy writing!