Invitation to 1st Date: Strike up a conversation with your intended, you can do it! Invite them to an activity or to a nice dinner.

Planning the 2nd Date: Deploy your flashiest carrier pigeon for this job. Fortune favors the bold.

Prior to Date 3: Text only in Regency, Shakespearean or Chaucerian English. Try to pick one and stick with it, but let's be honest you'll start out in one and end up in another. This is forgivable.*

Before Date 4: Sacrifice a smelt fish together and consult its entrails for guidance.

Before Date 5: Switch from texting to phone conversations, be flirtatious!

Before Date 6: Discuss your skin-shedding cycle and its dark, beautiful intricacies. Cheerfully offer to add this recurring event to your intended's calendar.

Before Date 7: Send a fun hand-decorated postcard. Old-school mail is so romantic!

Before Date 8: "Date Eight" rhymes-- knit a scarf of human hair together, to block insidious spirits. This does not count as a date.

Before Date 9: Send a cute snapchat of your pet, or of a fresh hot dish you just cooked. Don't be afraid to show off what makes you unique!

Before Date 10: Confess that you are a bog witch.

Before Date 11: Talk about organizing a fun group outing, it is important to get to know each other's close friends!

Before Date 12: Do not discuss the Poison Curse until it is definitely too late.



*For the record, sexting comes rather late in the dating rules, so I'd advise against it until at least dates 25-27, though there are exceptions for circumstances involving an Act of God(s), like a blood hurricane or Lich attack.

III. 11/26/11, Later

Oh, let me.

Breathing into the hollow of your neck
I'll trace the intercostals
Press palms into your ribs
Lock my arm bones around your cage
And pull, and pull, and pull.

A heart like that is far too beautiful
Buried under common flesh

We must crack the sternum
Cry the lungs
And place it in your own hands

This is your heart, too beautiful--

Oh let me, let me, let me.

The grizzled howls that tumble in your gut
Are only so silent.

The cry in every bristle
Scream from your unharming hands
And come hurtling through your gentle downcast eyes.

An anguished tantrum
Utterly clapped in stillness.

That I may put my touch to you
Oh let me

That I could draw this poison
To the surface
In a trembling, wakening
Escape and cure

And we, two, remain

Your ribs agape, heart in hand
And my hands under yours.

From the 11th floor where I work
you cannot see the river

You can see the morning mist rising from it, though

Along a barely visible split that meanders 
between the patchwork trees of the forest preserve: 
red, gold, green, brown

Before the day officially starts
you can stand at the picture window
high up off the ground
and watch the mist gather up its blanket 
returning to the atmosphere
leaving the unseen river bare 
to push

Back in 2013, WRITE CLUB Atlanta posted this prompt. I found it terribly engaging and the below piece tumbled out because of it. A bit of a play upon guided meditations. Not sure whether I ever submitted it to them or not. Regardless, I don’t mind it seeing the light of day here, since it is so different from my usual fare.

Path.
by Gwynn V. Fulcher

You are walking barefoot on a path. 
The path is covered in a dry dirt so fine it is soft as sifted flour. 
The air is comfortable. 
There is a breeze. 
You are content.
You come across the first thing.
It is round and fits in your cupped hands. 
It has a bright color and a give to its skin.
It smells of citrus.
It is an orange.
You know it is.
You put it in your right pocket.

The pocket is deep, there is plenty of room.

You start walking again.
You are comfortable.
Relax.
You see the second thing.
It is ahead of you and a little to the right of the path.
It’s taller than you are, but only a little.
And its skin is rough.
As you approach it, you see it has no leaves.
But a few small colored buds.
Seeing it reminds you to take a deep breath.
It is a tree.
You know it is a tree.
You retrieve a twig that has fallen to the ground.
A bud is on the twig.
Place the twig in your left pocket
And inhale deeply.

There is plenty of room.

You continue walking past the tree.
You are relaxed.
The air is soft.
There is a breeze.
You follow the path into a lightly wooded forest.
The leaves are light green
And sunlight beams in and out between the trunks as you move.
The air is comfortable among the trees.
You feel the twig in your pocket.
The orange.
And inhale again.
Relaxing.
Walking.
You see the third thing.
It is on the ground.
When you stop it is at your feet.
It is thin and black with silver threads.
It is made of cloth.
It is a glove.
You know it is a glove.
The glove is yours.
You bend your knees and crouch to pick it up.
You rest in the low comfort of that position.
Feel the gentle stretch on your legs and knees.
Feel the softness of the glove in your hands.
And stand again. 
Regard the silver threads.
Seeing the glove reminds you to keep it.
You place the glove in a pocket.

You continue to walk with a steady, relaxed cadence.
The trail is inviting.
The dirt is dry and soft.
The trees thicken and shush in the low breeze.
You see the fourth thing.
It is on the trail ahead.
At the edge of a clearing.
It is small enough to fit in your one hand.
It is clean and warm-looking.
It is a gun.
You know it is.
The gun is not yours.
Seeing it reminds you that someone else is here.
You reach inside your pockets.
And gently feel the glove.
The orange.
The twig.
And inhale deeply.
You push the gun across the ground with your bare foot.
In the soft, dry dirt.
You push it off of the trail.
Into the brush.
Its metal was pleasantly warm from the sun.

You resume walking.
You step from the soft, sifted trail.
Into the clearing.
The air is inviting.
The grasses are knee-high
Bending gently in the breeze.
The sun is warm and waning.
A loon cries softly.
You see the fifth thing.
In the grasses.
Ahead and a little to the right.
There.
In the bed of wild tulips.
Amid the softly buzzing wings of the carrion flies.
He is exactly where you left him.