*Writer/Poet's Audio/Video Prompt: If Your Childhood Was a Crystal or a Color, What Would It Be?

I certainly thought Episode 6 needed processing. In the future, the more listeners I get, the more we will have to revisit some of these rough ones, no?

I want to provide some safety for others when they read or listen to my work because people have their own processing times. I decided to make an audio/video clip when I heard this since it makes a nice prompt.

• So far, I’ve gotten one beautiful response—a poem—from the very talented

  Sydney
  and asked her if I could republish her work in my poetry/art/photography magazine, Visual Liquid. I’m still hoping it’s a yes!

  If you feel so inclined, please check out her page, too. Tonight, I re-read her latest poetry, and I find it elegant and easy to take in:

  
  

Poetry Prompt

What sorts of colors would your childhood represent?
What would your childhood be?
Would it be an onyx?
Would it be jet?
What color is your childhood?
What crystal represents it?
Is it one crystal?
Is it a platter of crystals?
Is it metallic?
Is it dull?
Is it vitreous?
Is it orange-red?
Is it green?
Is it tranquil blue?
We’d measure the childhood emotional weight like we would measure the crystal’s hardness.

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Blue Crystals, Damien Schnork, Unsplash

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EXCERPTED TRANSCRIPT

16:29
My childhood experience has been, in general, extremely heavy. I think of comparing it to crystals or stones.

Each person's childhood experiences can be compared to crystals, or they can have the quality of this. At least the ones where I'm privileged to hear their stories. Each experience has a brightness and an atomic weight. If we were to look at the values of somebody's childhood and compare or use the analogy or the metaphor of each childhood, it would be like a crystal. What sorts of colors would your childhood represent? What would your childhood be? Would it be an onyx? Would it be jet? Definitely black and dark, but there was lightness in there, right?

So, what color is your childhood? What crystal represents it? Is it one crystal? Is it a platter of crystals? Is it metallic? Is it dull? Is it vitreous? Is it orange-red? Is it green? Is it tranquil blue? We'd measure the childhood emotional weight like we would measure the crystal's hardness.

If my experience is equivalent, it's surely onyx. Onyx is the metaphor for my childhood.

This poem contains a lot of reflection, and I have a lot of it because I wrote my story in the form of poetic narratives. So, I invite you all to pick one event in your life where you felt lost, unseen, abandoned, and afraid your needs wouldn't get met.

Anything similar to this poem I'm about to read. There is power in poetry because the form invites us to encapsulate our story.

So not only do we get to get the honor of speaking it aloud and saying it to another intelligent eight, right? We have this opportunity to package our story.

It forces us into the form of poetry itself. It forces us to contain a story in the confines of a poem. Otherwise, we would have a memoir.

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To hear all of Episode 6, Part 1, take a listen here.