Your prompt word this week is
BOARD
My daughter came to visit last weekend and we played board games. Of course, there are many other meanings associated with this word. There are wooden boards; you can board a plane or another form of transport; there are notice boards, diving boards and exam boards; you can board with a family or be on board with an idea. What does this week’s prompt word mean to you?
Fact or fiction, prose or poetry, I would love to read your thoughts on this week’s prompt, but there’s no obligation to share your writing. Here is the work you shared on the last prompt BREAK.
Breaking Her Diet
I measure her cat food with care from the vat,
but she has such an aptitude, my little cat,
for flushing out lizards and others like that.
With delicate paw thrusts, she gives them a bat
’til they barely know where it is that they’re at,
then unleashes her claws for a more severe pat.
Be it lizard or bird or scorpion or rat,
she defeats it as though it were merely a gnat
and lays it out nicely on my front door mat:
one scorpion sting less or a feather for my hat,
then returns to the stool where she formerly sat,
licking her chops, and that’s why she’s so fat!!!
Broken History
Devils break no mystery.
They’re chained to dreams of death.
They can’t redo their history.
My words won’t give them breath –
since I have better things to do
and even devils know I do.
Susan Batten:
Dinner potatoes blip upon the hob for dinner’s on the way. His favourite mug awaits his tea, and she has laid his tray so he can watch the match meanwhile, see how the Gunners play.
She’s too surprised to make a sound. Her cook’s knife hand is steady. The meal is cooked, it’s all prepared, But this! She isn’t ready.
For suddenly he’s standing there, arms hanging at his side, dark eyes go blinking round his cage: but there’s no place to hide.
He tells her he is passing through, just come to pack a case. “It’s over.” Whispered. Crackled speech, averted eyes, drawn face.
Potatoes blip on tranquilly, The steady, routine song, He’s gone, escaping silently, “Mama!” they cry, “what’s wrong?”
Contrasts draw lines we would not ‘see’.
Light without shadow; just a blur.
Evil gives Good its clarity.
Contrasts draw lines we would not ‘see’.
Wars; a woeful necessity,
Breaking our hearts when they occur.
Contrasts draw lines we would not ‘see’.
Light without shadow; just a blur.
A Broken System Limerick
The current political climate could not be anymore toxic.
It’s a war between two diametrically opposed political parties. One party believes the greatest good is only for the rich that are willing to pay for it and should exclude those that cannot. The other party believes that the greatest good is for the greatest number of people and that the price for it should be paid for by everyone contributing according to their ability to pay.
The sad irony is that so many frustrated, disillusioned people are so misguided that they are willing to do the bidding of the party that has absolutely no concern for them after they secure their vote. And, as we saw, that bidding can be unlawful and fascist in nature. Those are the people that will ultimately suffer the most because their frustration and disillusionment will be exacerbated by the betrayal of a party that only wants to use them, not include them.
We are currently in a stalemate. Hopefully there is a way to break the stalemate so that it doesn’t spell checkmate for America.
Partisan politics – so demoralizing.
With the two parties, there’s no compromising.
It’s a zero-sum game,
And a terrible shame….
So many suffer from their antagonizing.
“Have a break, have a Kit Kat” immediately came to mind for this.
What also came to mind is that the current product is about half the size with a quarter of the chocolate and three times the price to the one I remember as a girl.
I also thought of the potty breaks we had to take on our journeys down South to visit my Mum before she passed away in 2018.
We’d share the driving and have a break every hour or so, letting Maggie out for a wee and for all of us to stretch our legs.
Now the most current thing is “A break in the rain in one hundred and twenty minutes ” according to the radar picture! Except it’s not rain… we’ve got hail!!
I break the chain and bark loudly all the time
Running wild and free in my own dawgy mind
And like the ocean slowing rolling with the tide
I invite you to jump in and go along for the ride
Letting you sink or swim , deciding to bark or whine
You thought you could break me, keep me under your thumb. And I let you believe you had until the day it all came undone. I no longer walk on eggshells, or check my watch. I’m free from your strangled hold, and standing taller just a notch.
Break is a word that carries a sound.
A crack.
A snap.
A moment where something that once held… no longer does.
As a child, breaks were small things —
a toy splitting in two,
ice fracturing under careful feet,
a pause between lessons,
a breath of freedom before the bell rang again.
Later, breaks became quieter.
Less visible.
More permanent.
A break in trust.
A break in promises.
The kind that doesn’t make noise,
but echoes long after.
I used to think breaking meant failure.
That something had gone wrong.
That strength meant holding everything together, no matter the cost.
But life has a way of teaching differently.
Some things need to break
so something truer can take their place.
Old patterns.
False loyalties.
Versions of ourselves we’ve outgrown.
There is a breaking that destroys —
and a breaking that reveals.
Like light through cracked glass.
Like waves against rock, shaping something new.
Like the moment you finally say enough
and walk away.
Break is not always an ending.
Sometimes it is the first honest beginning.
I thought our family couldn’t break
Then along came Trump with his take
Stubbornness does not playcate
Opinions grown that will not shake
Can’t people see these mistakes
Letting those loud mouths slake
I want to walk us back, betake
Times when Trump did not forsake
The USA.
Give Her a Break
“Pete’s on a break just now.”
“He was on a break yesterday. How many breaks does he get?”
“Yeah, well… we’ve been held up by a delivery today, so he couldn’t get away earlier.” The girl looked close to tears. “I’ll tell him you’ve been in, like. Gotta go.”
He disappeared through a door marked STAFF ONLY.
Behind it, Pete’s head peeped out from behind a stock shelf where he’d ducked to hide from the manager after being told to go and help in the garden centre.
“You’re gonna have to tell her, Pete. A break-up’s never easy but it isn’t fair to keep her hanging.”
“I know. I’ll phone her tonight.”
“It’d be kinder to tell her to her face.”
..
He wished he’d kept this thought to himself when Pete turned up next day with a broken nose.
Tony:
Unknown vocabulary,
Pause, you say.
Charming word for those whom history never interrupts.
Pause to think, pause to breathe,
While the world continues without permission.
I tried to say ‘pause’ at the crash of things
He didn’t understand.
So let, take it, your break.
But that it be brief…
And dangerously lucid.
Earth is in trouble
Break glass in emergency
We need relief now
“You still writing? For heaven’s sake, take a break.”
The Gathering
Still night
Needs its silence
Dreams gather at the edge
Prior to dawn breaking apart
Slow light
Jules Pens Some Gems:
brittle twig
when will dry wood break,
slow sap buds
moody shift
when will spring break to
warm the air
freezing dawn
sun barely breaks sky
coats break wind
breaking sound
tick tock of the clock
tapping keys
michnavs:
Break, break, break (After Tennyson)
break, break, break,
on my weary soul, o heart!
would that my burdened mind might wake
to wisdom, and depart.
o well for the silent ache,
and the sorrows cast on me;
o well for the cruel stroke that breaks
like waves upon the sea.
o well for the hidden scars,
for the daggers in my breast;
they fall like night’s unpitying stars,
and rob my soul of rest.
and the night drifts on to sleep,
while birds forget their song;
the owls in shadowed vigil keep
a cry both faint and long.
your voice—still lingering there—
through darkness softly weaves;
a ghost upon the midnight air
that never truly leaves.
break, break, break,
on my weary soul, o heart!
may morning’s grace, for mercy’s sake,
bring peace—and let me start.
Suzette B's Blog:
Thaw
perspectives break free—
a thawing lake’s epiphany,
ego letting go
Lou by the Sea
Wedding vows
Break these vows
You’ll
Break my heart
In return
I’ll break your legs
There’ll be a
Permanent
Break in our relationship
Think on
Therapy Bits:
I am not Broken
I carry grief the way the earth holds rain—
not as a wound alone, but something sown.
It seeps through cracks I never meant to show,
yet in that dark, unseen, something has grown.
I am not shattered by the weight I bear;
I bend, I breathe, I rise because I care.
There are days the silence presses like a stone,
and memory hums where laughter used to live.
Still, I gather pieces of myself with care,
learning again the quiet art to give—
not what I’ve lost, but what remains in me:
a stubborn spark that will not cease to be.
Grief walks beside me, not ahead or behind,
no longer dragging me into its night.
I’ve learned its language, felt its shifting tides,
and found within its depths a steady light.
It does not own me, though it knows my name;
I am the fire it never learned to tame.
Courage is not loud—it does not shout.
It’s in the breath I take when tears still fall,
in choosing one more step, then one again,
in answering the ache without a wall.
It’s in the quiet vow I daily keep:
to wake, to try, to feel, to not retreat.
I am not healed in some clean, final way;
the ache still echoes, soft and uncontained.
But strength is not the absence of the storm—
it’s standing firm while being rearranged.
Each scar a map of where I chose to stay,
each heartbeat proof I did not drift away.
So I will walk this road with open hands,
not free of pain, but stronger than its claim.
For grief has carved a deeper space in me
where hope and courage steadily remain.
I am not broken—I am forged, remade,
a living testament: I was not swayed.
break
destroy
man and boy
oh gee
such wonderous ruin and misery!
Me And Mrs. Crow
“What makes you laugh?”
asked Mrs Crow
Looking at me down below
“I laugh at my own stupidities.”
“That you should,” she replied
Condescendingly.
She was again on top of the tree
Surveying the world around
With absolute glee.
“What makes you laugh by the way?”
I asked irritatedly.
“Of course, you! Making the same mistakes again and again.”
She fluffed her body up unnecessarily
“What?!” I almost screamed, “You observe me?”
“Yessss! You are observable.”
She scrutinized me from head to toe.
A few times more.
“Wh… wh… att so funny about me?”
I asked in spite of myself.
“Well! Let me see… Hmmm…”
She said finally, ” I like the way you trust the ones who have betrayed you more than once.”
She sighed emphatically and then continued,
“And befriend those again and again who are unreliable to the core.”
At this point she looked at me quizzically,
“And then you have the gumption to crib and complain to God ‘Why me ? Oh Lord!’ Hehehe… Hehehe…”
Her laughter sounded demoniacal.
I rounded her up with red eyes,
“Don’t you make mistakes? You supercilious woman… nay… demon.”
“Of course I do,” she said calmly.
“But I know how to pay them back too. In my own sweet way,” she said pompously.
“Ahem!” She cleared her throat, “To give you a burning example…”
“The day you forget to serve the kibbles to that mongrel, of which I get a generous share, I make it a point to make the best of my poop at your doorstep.”
I wanted to say, “How you dare!”
But I kept my piece to myself instead and added quietly, “That means I should also reciprocate the way those wanton creatures have behaved with me?”
She nodded sagely at first but then shook her head gravely, “But I know you will not be able to. You are too much of a softeeee… And that high and mighty “forgiving and forgetting” business at which you keep without rest. It’s not going to take you anywhere unless you break free like me…”
At this juncture she turned her head to the sky thoughtfully.
And then cocked her head back at me and shrugged energetically.
I stood there with a solemn face thinking whether I’d ever be able to join her race.
“Aah! I guess it’s not to be,” she said at last resignedly.
“You are not made that way and you cannot change your ways too.”
“Never mind. Forget what I said. Keep doing what you do best. Let your own heart bleed and soul suffer with zest. Sannu kii? (That’s what’s it to me?)”
“As you writhe and roll in self inflicted pain it’ll give another occasion to me to laugh at you again.”
With this callous confession she made it to the top most branch of my Champs tree.
As I kept staring at her balefully.
Marco: A Backstory
Naomi had been on set about three months before she got Diana, the unofficial set ‘house-mother’ alone on a mutual lunch break.
For weeks Diana had been watching Naomi’s hungry eyes landing on Marco- she’d felt her exasperation every time she tried to involve him in a conversation- and Marco although he was always polite- was quick to excuse himself. So when Naomi sat down next to her and said she had to ask her something on the down low- Diana was prepared.
She let Naomi ask the questions she knew were forthcoming- and then she gave it to her straight.
“Marco. Our beautiful, ever so talented Marco. He’s been on set design here for a little over six years. You may remember his work from the lobby shot in the Delacroix picture Maxine– that staircase that looks like it floats? That ingenious design was created by none other than our Marco.
In order to understand where Marco is coming from, I have to tell you the story of Marco and Syl.
Marco had been on set about four years when Hair and Make-Up brought on a new stylist. Her name was Syl. And Syl… well, Syl was a cut above- pun absolutely intended.
She had that rare quality- technique, yes- but also the eye. But she wasn’t full of herself- she didn’t perform. She didn’t try to charm anyone. She just… existed in her own skin, clean and uncomplicated.
And that- was what caught Marco eye- the fact that she was entirely, unapologetically herself.
Now, the thing about Marco is that he came to LA straight from his father’s construction company in Oaxaca. He learned a tradition of pride there- the kind that carries into everything a man puts his name on. It’s a big part of what makes him so good.
But, in saying that, I’m also saying he comes from a world where certain things are fixed. Where men are defined by their work, and women- well women are defined by societal norms that were written long before any of us were born.
Marco grew up inside those traditions, they are part of who he is. And Syl- God love her- grew up breaking every rule that ever tried to tell her who she should be.
And when those two met, it was like someone set the stage ablaze. There was so much chemistry between them- it was literally hot just being in the same room with the two of them.
I have to think originally it was the extremities to which they were different that drew them to each other- that made their passion burn so bright. But loving it and living with it are two different things. And Syl- while she admired the virility of Marco’s masculinity- wasn’t going to fold herself into the shape of a woman evolved through hundreds of years of Mexican history.
And Marco- when he got to thinking seriously about putting his name on a life with someone so already fully formed by her own identity- realized he could never ask a woman like Syl to bend herself around such traditions. Not without dimming exactly what he loved so much about her.
So, when they realized what staying together would cost- they chose to walk away- each of them a new person- the one they had become as a result of having loved each other.”
With that, Diana gathered her things, stood, and rested a hand lightly on the back of Naomi’s chair.
“That’s our beautiful, talented Marco’s backstory,” she said. “I’ll leave you to decide where, if anywhere you want to go with it from here.”
***
Image quote: Pinterest
Esther Chilton 
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