I just thought up a few questions to ask my roommate who’s an environmental science major. I wanted to confirm my suspicion that we’re all a little more creative than we think (hence we can all be creative writers in some aspect). So, ask yourself or another individual a series of questions. Use the answers in a new way—maybe in a poem, short story, or drawing of some kind. Honestly, I had a ridiculously fun time with this, and I hope you will too.
My strange interview and result piece:
1. What do you think of when I say these words?
cold– snow
gray-fall
photo– her and her sister
work–teaching assistant
upside down– Spiderman
deep– earth’s mantle
warm– moist
cup– solo
three– two
bold– red
2. If you could be one thing for the rest of your life what would it be? A grocer at a consciously produced food market or owner of a coffee shop
3. Favorite warm drink? Chai tea
4. Favorite word? Papillon (butterfly)
5. Most valuable thing you own? Memories
6. Would you travel back in time, stay in the present, or go to the future? Why? Stay in the present because she likes her current life.
7. Favorite place in the world? Bryne, Norway: ancestor’s family home
8. Pen or pencil? Pencil, because she can always erase her mistakes.
9. Who is one person you would bring back from the dead? No one. She believes that when someone dies it’s their time to go and would be wrong to bring them back.
10. How many times have you been in love? Twice
Result:
Erasers
We stand in solos, threes and twos, raising our bold red cups to an upside down Spiderman. Our bodies warm as we try not to fall in love. Try not to fall in love twice. Gray conversations leave invisible snow on the floor as our bodies, warm bodies, moist bodies, sway with conceptualized music and turn bright white memories into something like Chai tea.
We just wanted to own a coffee shop and have conversations where we, dressed in our graphic t-shirts and bean caps, could be deep, maybe even like the earth’s mantle, or our memories. We could leaf through photos of mothers, sisters, brothers and the dead. They should stay dead; we would not bring them back—its their time.
Instead, we work like teaching assistants trying to swim in our present. Feeling like papillion with holes in the wings. We are the new generation—the ones to fix the world’s problems. But we’ve been given pens and fonts, not pencils with erasers for our mistakes.
The slow burn of our bodies through gray is all that we can do. It’s all we can ask for without our dreams. Without erasers.
