Selfie Self-Satisfied Selves (#21 NaPoWriMo Prompt)

Burning lungs, a scramble up
Twilight stairs, Huffer’s Hill. Your world.
Your arms around me,
Warm against summer chill–12,000 feet.

Wrapped in a celestial cloak,
Watching
Wyoming fade to black.

I breathed gortex, mountain, you.
My cheek, your coarse whiskers,
Our vista private, infinite,
Complete.

In the gloaming below,
Elk, moose, deer, marmots, wildflowers, waterfalls.
This moment.
Self-satisfied.

Long waves light
Faces so confident in our “us.”
Our future.
Our choices.

We hung the moon overhead.

(freewrite paragraph) I remember the air burning my lungs the last bit as we scrambled up the twilight stairs of Huffer’s Hill. You were showing me your world. Your arms were around me, pulling me close and warm in the chill of a July night at 12,000 feet. In our celestial hood, we watched the glow fade from the distant Wyoming skyline. I breathed in your scent, a mix of gortex, and deodorant, and you. There, wrapped up in you with my cheek brushing your whiskers, on top of the natural world, we were complete. Our grinning eyes searched out the elk, moose, deer, marmots, and wildflowers of Colorado incognito in the growing darkness. The photo is the moment. We are self-satisfied in our happiness. The long waves light up our faces exuding confidence in us, our future, and our choices. We reached up and hung the moon over our heads.

I followed Brim’s first prompt for a freewrite about a selfie.  Then, because we are so self-satisfiedly happy in this photo, I decided that it fits within the narcissist prompt.  Using a form of the elimination technique from yesterday’s prompt, I ultimately came up with the poem. These ideas have been so fruitful and fascinating.

NaPoWriMo Prompt: And now for our (optional) prompt. In her interview, Brim provides us with several suggestions for generative writing exercises, and we’d like to challenge to today to tackle her third one, which is based in the myth of Narcissus. After reading the myth, try writing a poem that plays with the myth in some way. For example, you could imagine that imagine the water is speaking to you, the narcissus flower. Or you could write a poem in which the narcissus berates the Kardashians for stealing their neurosis. Or a poem that comments on the narcissism of our time, i.e. beauty and body obsession, etc.