Welcome to The Daily Aftershock Writing Prompt—a daily invitation to write from the edges of aftermath, memory, rupture, and repair.

Each day, you'll receive a short, charged prompt designed to crack something open. There are no rules, only resonance. Use these however you need: to begin a poem, to open your diary, to find your voice again.

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Here’s a poem by me:

Today is another morning / not like the rest / it’s been a year / and more / and every day / it’s even more / since I didn’t die / and even more / since I didn’t die before that / and even more / since I was born / and came out / of the ultimate / safe space / a kind of death / isn’t that / what the Daoists say / we die / every night / then we / are / reborn / and birth / was the first eviction / the first light too bright / the first breath that hurt / lungs ballooning like they’d never done it before / because they hadn’t / and maybe / we’ve been catching our breath ever since / all this time / just trying to breathe properly / ever since we were forced / out of the sea / out of the warmth / into a world with edges / names / numbers / clocks / and colours we weren’t ready to see / and how strange / that this is what we call the beginning / a tear / a scream / a shudder / a cord cut / and everyone cheers / as if rupture is the same thing / as arrival / but maybe it is / because what is it / when we die / but what we were / before / we were / alive / not something / not anything / not light or dark / just / not / and even that / is too much / because / not is still a word / and silence / is still a sound / when you name it / and language is just noise / with rules / and shape / and god / how we cling to it / like it's a raft / like it’ll save us / when all it does is label the water / we’re drowning in / and we can’t know noise / before we bail / out of the waters / of our mothers / screaming / cold / separate / whole / and split / in the same / impossible / breath.

I wrote this thinking about how many times we get born in a lifetime. Not just once, at the start, but every time we nearly don’t make it and somehow do. Every time we claw our way back to breath. Every time we choose to stay.

Birth isn’t clean. It’s violent. It’s rupture. It’s a scream, a cut, a too-bright light. We call it the beginning but it’s also the first ending, the first separation, the first time we’re asked to survive something impossible. Maybe everything since then has just been trying to breathe right again.

This poem came from that space. The feeling that even language, even poetry, is something we grab onto in the wreckage. Something that helps us name the water, even if we’re still drowning in it.

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TODAY’S PROMPT: WRITE ABOUT BIRTH

Write about the moment before. Before the breath. Before the name.Write the first hurt. The first silence. The first time you were seen.

Write what birth really felt likeor write the first time you came back to life.Write about the moment you didn’t die.

We don’t have to start at the beginning.We can start at the break.

The Aftershock Review is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.