Change; Writers’ Workshop

Writing workout for Change; Writers’ Workshop

Set a timer to 15 minutes & write

Write about a series of things you would like to change, in yourself and in the world, you can talk about realistic literal changes, or abstract fictional ones, think of personal issues in your life, family, friends, interactions, and think of issues happening around the world that you wish you could change, and what you would change them into.

Example:

 

I want to change the eyes of men

Who’ve stared me down in streets

and seminars

just as well

into mice traps,

into tombstones,

I want to change myself

into the faces of all

their disappointed mothers,

 

 

I want rewire my brain,

I want rewire my mother’s brain,

I want to change the anxiety

in her eyes

to happiness,

I want to change the anxiety

in my eyes

to happiness

I want to change the flow

of toxic thoughts

and destructive actions,

So I do not come to a day

when my child mourns me,

 

 

I want to change the glee

on an Israeli soldier’s eyes

to realization,

I want to change Trump’s hands

to barbed wires,

so anybody who shakes his hand

can feel

the betrayal,

 

 

I want to change all

the Lebanese News Channels

to therapy sessions,

to teach an entire nation

to unlearn the habits

of blind following,

I want change this denial

into recognition

and then that into action,

 

 

I want to change all the roads

into the names

of Palestinian martyrs,

the road numbers

to their ages,

6 months

21

14

30

85

50

5

unborn

and will there ever be

enough roads?

I want to change all the roads in Syria

into spring flowers

leave no stone unturned

for some goddamn light,

To sprinkle rain on my grandma’s grave,

ask her to forgive me

for forgetting

most days

that her faceless,

nameless

murderer,

still has breakfast every morning,

takes their kids to school

bids them goodbye

does not look over their shoulder

does not need to

and still calls my mother’s

grandmother’s

land

theirs.

 

 

I

want to unload the weight

of the wait

for a tomorrow

that does not carry

yesterday’s

face

 

The writing workout has been developed and written by Dana Seif, the founder of The Poetry Passport. You can find her on Instagram here.