Ebb Flow Deflation Elation

Response to a writing prompt from Easkey Britton

They’re all gonna laugh at you, laugh at you, laugh at you, laugh at you…

It’s the type of prose where you channel Carrie’s mother from the Stephen King shocker.

Bare soul, bear witness, speak truth to power. You would rather drink a gallon of seawater than spill your guts.

Cullenstown, South Wexford, Ireland

Floaty notions are for earth mothers, fathers, dissenters. Like a true Northerner you’re too paranoid to bear a grin, never mind a thought or sentence from the heart.

Such notions as entitlement to emotion or opinion may be torn down by a simple eye-roll. You’re a nervous tourist on the shore of your own past.

Ebb, you let dreary outgoing tides drag you over sharp pebbles on treacherous sands that conspire to maroon you further.

Flow, you say fuck it all. You’re at swim, treading jellyfish water, driven by the cold, ironically on fire.

Deflation and elation is your unofficial writing game plan.

Deflation months burnt out as a waning moon. Melted candle drooped over a brass holder, gaze on the ground. Where you’re headed.

Feel sorry for yourself, it’s a terrible shame that all those rejections crept in under your skin and set up home.

Elation months in smokey autumn/winter your crescent smile swirls your insides in bursts of ideas. You fatten the growing moon with more energy than the harsh bulb of a torture cell.

Everything is possible and unstoppable. You are wired to the moon.

And that was always considered an insult in your childhood hometown. Wired to the moon, head-the-ball, header. That one’s not right in the head.

If a year equals one large moon, does that mean the year’s new moon is a turning point? The kickstart necessary to restart? The stomach rush of wanting to write. The joy from scratch of pen on paper is way better than a Yes on Submittable.

Usually the hopeful moon shows a fingernail in October, like you’ve finally settled and accepted the school term and begun to knuckle down.

This time it was around the Winter Solstice before the fingernail crescent reappeared. You don't say anything smart like you took your time but just get stuck in to the work. Hopefully this moon year will wax until the Summer Solstice.

Ebb. Flow. Deflation. Elation.

Roll your eyes because you know that facial exercises will serve you in the long game.

Thanks to Easkey Britton and the Ebb And Flow course writers at Irish Writers Centre online.