Confession from Ashford Row

Prompt Response

I was tagged in a note about a prompt I might be interested in. I agree it’s a good prompt and incredibly apropos at this moment. So, I took a stab at it.

Matthew Holvey “Now this is an interesting idea. Would folks be interested in a writing prompt set in Ashford Row, a 1920’s Gatsby era town that’s secretly purgatory?”

Why yes Matthew, yes, I would. What would it look like if my Tens was a vampire? This was super fun!

Confession from Ashford Row

Don’t ask me what I remember.

I remember everything.

That’s the problem.

You think purgatory is fire or fog or waiting.

No, darling. Purgatory is a pain party that never ends

you are the only one who knows

everyone here is already dead.

I wear red because it’s the color of a warning

I stopped giving.

Gold because even fallen things

catch the light.

My silhouette has ended better men than you

not with teeth, not with claws,

just with the geometry of a back turned.

A hip that says, “don’t.”

In a language men forgot how to read.

You want my trauma?

It’s in the champagne flute I never set down.

It’s in the laugh I learned from a woman who burned

in a century you’ve never heard of.

It’s in the way I say charming

when I mean I have already forgotten your face.

I am not sad.

Sad is for people who still believe in endings.

I am composed.

A rose left on a piano.

A love letter sealed with nothing

but teeth.

You may dance with me.

You may call me beautiful.

You may think for one glittering song,

that you have touched something real.

Then the clock strikes two

Ashford Row folds itself back into the mist.

You wake up in your own bed

with a bite on your neck

you don’t remember earning.

That’s the mercy.

I don’t have to kill you.

You’ll spend the rest of your life

trying to find your way back to my party.

And I won’t even remember your name.

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