A poetry prompt from elenaspoetry, “a letter to my stranger self”.
You grew and shrank like that girl in Wonderland. Drink me, eat me, taste me. But nobody knew what to expect of you. You were constantly shifting to be who they wanted, but they weren’t satisfied.
One day, you looked in a mirror and dissolved into a million pieces, breaking apart and yet unrecognizable as a stranger is.
You thought you’d finally know yourself underneath all those layers, but the truth is you’d hidden away so long, you had become unfamiliar to even you.
I wish I could remind you of who you were, but I’m only now starting to unravel the girl underneath.
She is lovely, searching, yet something phenomenal nonetheless.
If you see her, let her know I’m looking for her too.
She carved out a space to make it home. She crafted a village inside, and yet each time they hurt her, her anguish made her burrow further inside a place nobody decided to look, no one bothered to explore deeper until it was thought empty, deeper until it was thought vacant, deeper still until they accused her of having a hollow heart.
In less than a month, unlike you to care about the wreckage of the Titanic that is my heart. I have witnessed you stampede on and trample me barefoot. Yet, the teeth you bared is what I have come to expect.
Family taught me (for better or worse) to murder with mercy. When you were flashing your baby teeth, sharpening like knives, I was practicing my smiles in polished glass.
Unlike you to offer condolences or express empathy, and yet, the past few days, while Lazarus has been in the tomb, a different side of you has been exposed.
Unlike you to show warmth, still a reptilian cold underneath, but the air is a bit milder now – less frost, less chill.
Unlike you to offer benevolence and yet, a crack of a smile, a beginnings of generosity.
Is it possible you were murdered by my mercy? Killed by my kindness?
Or did New Year’s resolutions just fall a few days behind on this calendar?
I’m not one to gaze the gift horse in the mouth, but I do have my suspicions when you were flashing those fangs, honing them like knives, and are now sweet as spun sugar.
Just call me Doubting Thomas if your kindness only lasts as long as Lazarus was in the tomb.
Spiders wait in corners of intricate webs — their trappings lovely by design. Once, I thought, “What a fool to be stuck,” but now, older (and none the wiser, by any means), I see their elaborations and think myself a fly.
In March of 2009, the poet Rachel McKibbens introduced the poetry community to the concept of the “ghost line”. McKibbens defines the ghost line as “an inspiring line or image that becomes the unseen first line of a poem”.
The poet Ollie Schminkey provided their readers with a poetry prompt on April 9, 2025.
The prompt is as follows:
Use a line of a lyric from a song you have been listening to as a ghost line.
Here are a few more “ghost line” poems.
i: rain
These shapes I see in the darkness all conform to your figure and your cologne is like petrichor but faint. I think if I listen to the silence long enough, I can hear you whisper my name. (Don’t tell anyone – they’d think I belong in bedlam.)
But, as I trace raindrops along my windows, I remember scribbling in my Latin book, Amantes sunt amuntes – lovers are lunatics – and it doesn’t take the taste of rain to know the truth.
I’ll continue to watch the raindrops trickle down and chase shadows in the dark, but I won’t surrender to the madness because this is love and every silent evening, I whisper to see if I can hear your echo.
ii: changing seasons
Here we are, chasing these temporary highs like nightcrawlers leaning close to their radios, begging for a fix, but in a sad state of panic, you told me you thought your blood froze to ice (and you said you didn’t want to self-destruct to stay warm).
I offered you a cigarette, but you shook your head and said, “I don’t want a solution for my problems – just someone who can commiserate.”
So, we went outside in autumn and watched the leaves change colors for a while. You told me, “It’s nice to remember that even dying can be beautiful for some.”
iii: hiraeth
Every broken bone I never set right aches on me as though I have been falling asleep in airports. I’m never where I want to be because I swear, I don’t know where I want to be. Is it homesickness, even if you don’t know where your home is?
I traveled a thousand miles from here just to end up back in this wasteland and I booked a train ride out of town because a girl with straw-blonde hair read from the Rider-Waite tarot deck, telling me to leave this city behind.
(But everything hurts when I remember the details.)
I watch it all like it’s a dream. I pretend it’s not my life, but that has to stop.
Everything hurts like an unexplained car crash, but even though I’m a thousand miles away, I’m the one behind the wheel. (And is it homesickness, even if you’re already home?)
Isabelle Palerma 