Writing Exercise # 26

Ingredients:

1. List five things you can't control. Be specific.

2. List the last five moments that will run through your heart on your last day here.

3. List five people or events you wish you could change. Name specific details about what you'd change.


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The title of this piece of writing might be "An Inventory of (insert body part/organ here)" Or, "An Inventory of Your Last Breath." Choose things from your list that you carry in this body part; the lists are your inventory. Keep this in second-person narrative ("you carry your father's clouded lungs in your hands, it is hard to drink a glass of milk because of them.") Write out the consequences of the things you carry. If you choose to carry things from # 2, there are still consequences. But hopefully, they are brighter. Name them. Once you've built some lines, narrow them down. Pick the most important words. Rearrange them for their sound. Figure out what words work best together. Find the rhythm of them, (how else are you going to build cinquains of them?)