Forget

In my writer’s group we had an  assignment to set our timers for 10 minutes and write sentences beginning with the letter F. Only the letter F. (Try a list yourself. Choose your own letter.) They’re known as prompts, and they’re credited as indispensable tools to jump start the writing doldrums.

These were my 10 F’s (!) and were I to write another list right this moment, I know it would be utterly different. Therein lies the power of this exercise, to unshackle the writer, wondrously.

Strung together, I quite like the idea of shaping this list of 10 into a poem, and no doubt will.

1. Forget the times you spoke before thinking and caused pain.
2. Forget 12 years of priests and nuns looking over your shoulder, inspecting your cuticles, the collar of your blouse, measuring with a wooden ruler how far your blue serge uniform, stiff from too many hot irons,  fell below your knees.
3. Forget the ad agency owner who said your writing wasn’t up to their standards but would you like to go out for a drink to discuss options.
4. Forget her face that last morning and how it wasn’t the way  you would always  end up remembering it.
5.  Forget turning down an impromptu trip to Rio because you had “commitments.”
6. Forget the silent child in the shopping cart with the unwashed face.
7. Forget Sister St. Cletus saying she’d excuse me from detention because, after all, your father was not “of the faith.”
8. Forget the times you took the easy way, and just how many here were.
9. Forget the icy wind on your face that day on Bloor Street when he said you were lovely. When he said he would never forget you. Ever.
10. Forget the casual cruelties you inflicted, and those you suffered from.