Creative Commons Attribution
The first thing they teach is how to cut yourself with numbers.
Bleed into the clouds.
- Lose your footing in the blue. Let the water reach your legs. Then your arms. Just go ahead and drown!
2. Trade your own organs on the black market. You could use some cash. What’s your price?
4. Have your red blood siphoned like gas from a car
because you are expendable, replaceable and must
be used up!
I unlearned it all
6. when I stopped to collect seashells
I think I picked up all my parts and dismantled the many demons who would take my soul cause they never had their own they knew I would live long they knew I could stand through endless waves.
When you start to live outside yourself, it’s all dangerous.
–The Garden of Eden (started in 1946 but published in 1986)
~Ernest Hemingway
There are so many ways in which the world will try to destroy us
and we must look within to return to Paradise! 💝
Written for dVerse Poetics where Lisa hosts and challenges us to write one true sentence! (Inspired by Hemingway)
Tricia Sankey 
Oh, wow!
Thanks, Lucy! 💗
Love this. Especially the incorporation of the numbered list
Thanks so much! 🥰
That’s a fine ending. Standing in waves isn’t as easy as it looks.
–Fireblossom
No kidding! 🌊 Thanks for reading! 💕
Tricia I love your paint by numbers and how you rewrote the instructions! I love your wisdom at the end of the post as well. You’re right, the ways are endless but learning to let them flow by is key!
WordPress was giving me some trouble with formatting today, but managed to get the colors in there, haha! Thanks for the Hemingway lines, your prompt pushed me today! 💗
Glad you got your desired output, Tricia. You’re very welcome and so glad you were inspired by the prompt.
Ingenious approach and awesomely fun to read. Great work, TS
Thanks, Ron! Pleased you found it so! ❤
I admire the formatting and the numbered verses – very creative approach to the prompt. But more than this, I love the message of the last verse – an ode to courage to stand up to life’s challenges and endless waves.
Thanks for your thoughts Grace, I enjoyed experimenting with the form! 💕
I love this. The numbered list, the colored font, the truth of it. Wonderful.
I’m happy this worked as a poem, thanks Ali! 💕
This is amazing!! What a start! What a format! What sharp imagery and what an idea! Lucy’s WOW is succinct and expresses it well. This is an incredible poem!
I appreciate your kind words! Wasn’t sure I could pull the paint-by-number poem off, but thrilled you like it! 🥰
Great take on the prompt, and on paint-by-numbers! I agree with your final quote 100%
Thanks, I tried to channel Papa Hemingway!
You did it well! 😊
Wow! It’s simply amazing 👌👌
Thanks for your support! 💕
I love the idea of dismantling our demons 😀 this is gorgeously rendered, Tricia 💝💝
Thanks for your support, Sanaa! 💗
Amazing take on Hemingway! Creative and clever.
Thanks for reading, Helen! 💗
I love the formatting, with the small part of prose ending in that piece of understanding of being able to stand tall in the onslaught of waves.
Pleased you enjoyed this Björn! 💝
Tricia,
The instructions are wrong indeed, even if they’re written in bold and eye-catching colors, because they make you forget to stop and “collect the seashells” and ignore the soulless ones who tell us to trade who we are for their vision of who we are, are meant to be. I love the innovative way you write.
pax,
dora
Thanks, Dora! You took it just as intended, I appreciate your words! 💗
Another creative approach that adds an extra dimension to the words. Clever.
Thanks for your feedback, Sean, pleased you enjoyed it! 💝
What a fabulous list! I love your creativity and where Hemingway’s quote took you is amazing! Wow! ❤
Thanks for your comment, Colleen, nice to hear you enjoyed it! 💝
Your creative approach was so refreshing. Brilliant message, too. ❤
🥰
As a poet, you must be aware that water is a symbolism for life itself. When we present a gif of us standing in water, we are celebrating our positioning within the life-matrix itself.
— Catxman
http://www.catxman.wordpress.com
Thanks for your comment! I believe water is very evocative in poetry and can represent life, emotions, truth, cleansing and renewal. 🌊