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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Write like departure. Like it’s already too late, or too early. Write with the weight of whatever you’re choosing not to carry. Write as though the page is the last place you’ll say it.

Today I want you to write a poem that leaves something behind. I want you to end it unfinished, lingering, asking the reader for more.

Invent a word that holds what English doesn’t. You can compound two words for this, folding one truth into another. For example, love that is lost: love-spent.

The flicker between hope and guilt. The hum of something unsaid in your ribcage.

(e.g. “ghostwarm”, “unwish”, “saltjaw”, “afterskin”, “griefling”, “hushweather”)

Let your voice shift as you write, like someone standing in a doorway they can’t quite step through.

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