You Left a Joke in My Mouth and Now I’m Choking

Something Is Breathing in the Margin; Unprompted, and Yet...

Your Bi-Weekly Dose of Chaos has arrived. July 2025 edition (part… something)
A new moon’s worth of mischief. A fortnight’s ration of poetic peril.

This is not your average list of prompts.
This is a heatwave confession.
This is emotional damage dressed as a picnic.
This is what happens when you hold hands slightly too long and nobody says anything about it.

But remember this… you asked for them.

It starts with something small. A taste.
You crack open a warm can of something red and sticky. You sip. You wince.
It tastes like summer and regret and the last time someone said “we need to talk.”
You write one line. It fizzes. You’re already in trouble.

Then someone says they’re sorry, but they do it wrong. They do it with their shoulders, not their mouth. They do it while backing out of the room with their keys already in hand. You fold the moment like laundry. It doesn’t sit right. You write that down too.

Now you’re spiralling. Or maybe spiralling’s too generous — you’re doing tight little circles in someone else’s bed, trying to figure out if what just happened was closeness or context collapse.

The light gets weird. The clock says 2:47am. You’re not sure if you’re awake or in a flashback. Your phone buzzes. A name lights up.
Not the name. But a name that still knows where your soft bits live.

Suddenly you’re remembering that kiss that didn’t count, because the rain made it too cinematic and you didn’t want to seem dramatic. You call it “symbolism” now, but it still hurts when you think about how they pulled away first.

You tell yourself you’re writing about weather. You’re not.

You find yourself in public, holding hands with your fight-or-flight response.
You try to let go, but the panic attack insists on paying for lunch.
You’re sweating through your best shirt. The one you wore on purpose.
It was meant to say “unbothered.” It now says “feral poltergeist with a data plan.”

And then it happens. That glance. That almost-smile. That half-lit moment that makes you feel like maybe everything wasn’t a mistake.
You let yourself grin. Just a little. Just enough to make the ending harder later.

The second half of the month is messier. More visceral. More mouth.
Everything’s too loud, too late, too hot. You’re somewhere humid and indecent, wondering if desire counts as plot development.
Someone touches your hand, and you think about the word slick for too long.

There’s a bite, but you asked for it. Maybe not out loud.
Maybe just by walking in with your guard down and your eyes too open.
Now you’re writing things in your Notes app that would ruin your career.
You save them under a pseudonym you’ve never dared to be.

Someone says they wore that for you, and you try not to implode.
You try not to make that the entire poem. You choose failing.
It’s already the chorus. It’s already the tattoo you haven’t told anyone about.

You’re in the passenger seat, gripping something harder than necessary,
trying not to flinch when the song changes.
You’re halfway through a sentence that feels like a confession and no one’s listening.
Perfect. That means you can say anything.

Words begin to tumble. Fast, dirty, divine.
You don’t stop to sort them. You spit, shine, dusk, spill.
You let the rhythm bruise. You let it glamour. You let it put on a little lipstick and climb out your window.

Something aches, but it’s pretty now. You’ve dressed the grief up. Nightfall in sequins.
A tragedy with good lighting. A body made of metaphor and too much perfume.
You read it out loud and surprise yourself.
You didn’t know you still wanted to be touched there.

And then the glow. The buzz. The afterimage.
You thought you were done. You’re not.
You’re pulsing. Writing. Bleeding. Performing.
You’re alive in a way that makes no sense, and too much sense.

These prompts are not safe. They’re not tame.
They will flirt with you and then vanish.
They will crawl into your poems wearing someone else’s name.
They will hand you a match and ask, what are you willing to burn for a good ending?

So go on. Take one. Take all fifteen. Or let one take you.
Write it sweet. Write it filthy. Grab the wild card prompt by an innocent outstretched tit and swing off it like a suckling babe and bob for apples in your own subconscious, only stopping to spit out the bones and make a wish.
Write it with glitter, with bruises, with a grin you haven’t earned yet.

And tag me when it hurts. I want to see what survives the page.

if you liked this, share it with a friend, an ex, or someone who writes poetry you’re a bit scared of.
leave a comment if something here licked your brain.
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buy my book Salt-Rimmed Breath on Jazz-Thigh Gospel if you like your poetry feral, funny, and lightly bruised.
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see you in two weeks for the next dose.
or sooner, if the void ever texts back

RST xo