#AmpersandAfterDark /:\ Challenge 002 for Feb 18, 2026
Your piece must revolve around something missing.
But you cannot name what is missing.
#prompt #writing #poetry #writingprompt #poetryprompt #creativewriting #writingcommunity #poetrycommunity #poets
18.02.2026 14:11
π 23
π 6
π¬ 6
π 5
You never forget your first...
Your first love
Your first kiss
Your first pizza
The first time you have sex
The first time you have good sex
Your first argument
The first time they hit you
Your first dead body
#vss #poetry #murder #horror
20.02.2026 14:09
π 3
π 0
π¬ 0
π 0
A wish is tangible hope
#7syllablesentence #wish
17.02.2026 15:53
π 6
π 3
π¬ 0
π 0
#poetry
I Dance
02.02.2026 21:35
π 3
π 1
π¬ 0
π 0
Magic is in the space
where you hold your breath.
It's that moment
before tears fall,
Tucked inside joy and grief.
We are born with magic;
It's at the core of
our nascent #soul.
Yet it dies so quickly
As reality takes its toll.
#vss365
03.02.2026 00:25
π 7
π 2
π¬ 0
π 0
26.01.2026 03:31
π 18
π 4
π¬ 0
π 0
For Alex Pretti
Because his last words were for a woman;
because he asked,
are you okay, are you okay;
because he had learned to say it
by standing each night beside the dying;
because sometimes he held their hands;
because he had lived only as long
as the scent of childhood in an album;
because he was a son;
because he sang once;
because of all of it,
because of all of it,
because of all of it,
tell it, tell the story:
a breath has left;
a country is dying;
and a man laid his face
on its pavement today
as though he were listening
to a patient's heartβ
even then, even at the endingβ
to do what he was there to do: heal.
βJoseph Fasano
for Alex Pretti
26.01.2026 04:57
π 803
π 297
π¬ 35
π 28
βOver the land freckled with snow half-thawed
The speculating rooks at their nests cawed
And saw from elm tops, delicate as flower of grass,
What we below could not see, Winter pass.β
~Edward Thomas.
14.01.2025 09:57
π 13
π 3
π¬ 0
π 1
π
Iβll marry winter
and after she lifts her veil
then she will be spring
#haiku #senryu
16.01.2026 14:39
π 41
π 7
π¬ 3
π 0
I'm not from around here,
At least not a here that
You'd recognize.
I've come from a place
Where language
Forms mountains;
Where legends are born,
And children are hatched
from stories
their grandmothers told.
Ideas rise from earth
Like rhubarb,
To be plucked up
By impatient storytellers.
#vssdaily
12.01.2026 12:08
π 7
π 2
π¬ 0
π 0
snow flurries
coalesce up cliffs
banshee dance
#senryu
07.01.2026 02:05
π 22
π 1
π¬ 0
π 0
Laughable. That could go either way π
02.01.2026 13:59
π 0
π 0
π¬ 0
π 0
Oh that's just great π£
02.01.2026 13:58
π 3
π 0
π¬ 0
π 0
New Year bells chime loud
grapes pop like confetti bites
Midnight tastes like hope
#dailyhaikuprompt (grapes)
#5amwritersclub
#writingcommunity
#haiku
Happy New Year, everyone! π
01.01.2026 10:25
π 26
π 2
π¬ 0
π 0
sheβs only gone
and spilled her p o e t r y
all over the place
again
it sticks to our fingers
like summer syrups
sings like nectar
upon the tongue
and we simply cannot
bear to clean it up
weβd rather come
u n d o n e
#poetry
29.12.2025 00:00
π 62
π 13
π¬ 1
π 1
This would be
The line I meant to say
That #brilliant prose,
A syntactic spell
That would endear you to me.
Alas, it was not the line spoken
And, spell broken,
I watched as you walk away,
Shaking your head at
My ineptitude.
Forever admonished,
I hang my head in shame.
#FromOneLine #whistpr
28.12.2025 14:07
π 10
π 2
π¬ 0
π 0
Watching the sun rise
Dodging goatheads and cactus
Desert solitaire
#wss366 #haiku
26.12.2025 11:46
π 10
π 0
π¬ 0
π 0
I #survive Christmas -
Not by ignoring
The relentless ache
Of holidays past,
But by embracing
Memories of happier times:
The warmth you brought
To every table,
The laughter
That filled your soul.
From the carols sung
To the tinsel hung
Your memory still brings
The merry to my Christmas.
#vss365
26.12.2025 11:37
π 11
π 2
π¬ 0
π 0
Photorealistic oil painting of four red Christmas baubles resting on a white surface. They reflect light and cast shadows.
'Nobody ever asked me what I wanted for Christmas... I did not want to have anything to own, or to possess any object. I wanted, rather, to feel something on Christmas Day.'
Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye
#BookWormSat
π¨ Emma de Souza
20.12.2025 15:19
π 62
π 10
π¬ 1
π 0
They can be very persistent. Good luck with your new project!
20.12.2025 23:44
π 1
π 0
π¬ 1
π 0
Krampus: Origins and Development of a Winter Devil | Folklife Today
These days, itβs hard to make it through December in the U.S. without encountering Krampus. Hairy, scary, hoofed, and horned, the devilish character is wildly popular from coast to coast. Across the c...
Ahead of Friday's Krampusnacht, or "Krampus Night," read up on the folklore character who comes primarily from German-speaking regions of Europe and whose main duty as St. Nicholasβs companion is to punish or threaten naughty children while the saint rewards good ones. blogs.loc.gov/folklife/202...
04.12.2025 21:41
π 38
π 18
π¬ 0
π 0
Broken ornament.
Source: The Guardian
Time cracked bauble
Falls from the box
And once-held
Memories of Christmas
Spill onto the linoleum floor.
The light shifts,
And I am once again that child
Who laughed boisterously
Under light-laden trees
And danced under
A falling snow.
The ghosts of Christmas past
Nod their approval.
#BSPP48
04.12.2025 23:04
π 8
π 2
π¬ 1
π 0
Welcome to our three-part series on book rebinding, where Library of Congress advanced book conservation interns Brittany and Devon will take you through all the steps of rebinding a book from the Library's Thomas Jefferson Library Collection. Stay tuned for parts two and three!
21.11.2025 18:59
π 339
π 101
π¬ 6
π 9
Winter creeps slowly
Morning frost on the holly
Scent of pine resin
#Dailyhaikuprompt
05.11.2025 16:28
π 15
π 2
π¬ 0
π 0
.
a soldier cries out
"Where's my sweet nightingale, my love?"
nearby crickets weep with tears
.
#oddlyme
old prompt #vssdaily #nightingale
#poetry #micropoetry
05.11.2025 16:08
π 48
π 3
π¬ 0
π 0
Growing old can mean
Trading middle age madness
For ancient wisdom
#moonmystic #haiku
04.11.2025 02:08
π 10
π 1
π¬ 0
π 0
Perfect families
Hide such horrific secrets
Children must endure
#haikufeels #Dailyhaikuprompt
04.11.2025 02:04
π 11
π 0
π¬ 0
π 0
In the wee hours
When the house is quiet,
My crepuscular brain
Starts to do
Its nightly zoomies,
Those mental calisthenics
That are often accompanied
By shame, guilt, and
The crippling remorse
That lives in the shadows.
I have come to
Loathe the creature
That dwells in the dark.
#vss365
02.11.2025 10:35
π 15
π 3
π¬ 0
π 0
I flatter the pain
by staring at an hourglass
until my eyes contort
into a clouded infinity.
Depression
is a cutthroat business;
every defeatist thought
is a bullet
fired into the corpse
of the universe.
The brain buries itself
in a mirror,
burning.
#emoetry #vss365 #poetry
01.11.2025 13:12
π 27
π 3
π¬ 3
π 0