The Crane Wives Sentence Prompts
A series of prompts taken from The Crane Wives' 2015 album Coyote Stories Change bits and bobs as needed
01 KEEP YOU SAFE ❝When I was a child my nerves ran wild.❞ ❝When I watched my friends rise to the tops of the trees with the risk of fall I never climbed at all. Every day I told myself I’m not ready.❞ ❝Time is not your friend. Time is not your remedy. No amount of waiting will make you brave.❞ ❝No amount of fear will keep you safe.❞ ❝The older I get, the more fears I collect. I gather them from all the people I meet.❞ ❝Their stories reveal regrets their smiles can’t conceal.❞ ❝I carry them with me.❞ ❝Nothing worth doing comes easy.❞ ❝What if the steps I take turn out to be mistakes?❞ ❝How can somebody like me learn to say ❝Come what may❞?❞
02 THE MOON WILL SING ❝Tell me once again I could have been anyone, anyone else before you made the choice for me.❞ ❝My feet knew the path we walked in the dark, I never gave a single thought to where it might lead.❞ ❝We could have been anywhere, anywhere else instead I made a bed with apathy.❞ ❝My heart knew the weight, ten years' worth of dust and neglect.❞ ❝We made our peace with weariness and let it be.❞ ❝The moon will sing a song for me, I loved you like the sun. Bore the shadows that you made with no light of my own.❞ ❝I shine only with the light you gave me.❞ ❝Name your courage now.❞ ❝We could have had anything else, instead you hoarded all that's left of me.❞ ❝I want to feel the fire that you kept from me.❞ ❝The moon will sing a song for me.❞ ❝I loved you like the sun.❞
03 ALLIES OR ENEMIES ❝The words I speak are wildfires and weeds, they spread like some awful damn disease.❞ ❝I swear I didn’t mean what I said. I swear I didn’t mean it.❞ ❝Now listen close, you owe me ears for dropping eaves.❞ ❝Forget it all, you caught me in a moment weak.❞ ❝Sometimes I just can’t help myself.❞ ❝Are we allies or enemies?❞ ❝This will be the death of me.❞ ❝Remember when I could tell you not to smile when you were mad?❞ ❝Now you’re not so quick to forget.❞ ❝Are we allies or enemies? This will be the death of me.❞ ❝All is fair in love and war, but I can’t fight with you anymore.❞ ❝What happens now? Do we have another go? Do we bow out and take our separate roads?❞ ❝I’ll admit I’ve had my doubts but I want to be let in, not out.❞
04 UNRAVELING ❝I once loved a tailor who took eager care of me, sewed together my loose ends with stitches neat and clean but now my love is gone and I am left unraveling.❞ ❝I once loved a gardener, with his dirt-smudged face and hands trimmed my weeds and gave me room to grow my flowers again but now my love is gone and I am left here withering.❞ ❝I once loved a carpenter who carved a smile for me, sanded my rough edges, crafted new and lovely things but now my love is gone and I can’t help the fracturing.❞ ❝I never knew that I needed you.❞ ❝I once loved a man who kissed me once before he left, tied me up in knots, and said he’d soon return again but now my love is gone and I am left unraveling.❞
05 HARD SELL ❝I'm trying to make something of myself.❞ ❝I feel like I'm working with barbed wire and moth wings because I can't really get a hold of many things.❞ ❝I'm one deep breath away from a breakdown.❞ ❝My nerves are wrecked and coming unwound.❞ ❝The world is hostile and I'm fragile and I need someone to kiss the cuts and tell me to keep trying.❞ ❝Is it me? Is it really just me?❞ ❝Does everybody have it together or are we all pretending?❞ ❝Is it me? Is it really just me? Holding it together with one loose string that I can't stop pulling.❞ ❝I rip myself apart at the seams. I find one weak spot and start unraveling, hoping I can find a better me. A fresh new start buried under me.❞ ❝Can we stop pretending now?❞ ❝Can we stop pretending now? Can we all admit that we don't have it figured out?❞
06 ROCKSLIDE ❝Oh, I know you want to plant your feet but we best get a move on, or the devil we will meet.❞ ❝Oh, I pray today my soul to keep but we best get a move on, or the devil we will meet❞ ❝Drop dead sprint, my darling, now!❞ ❝Don't look back now honey, just try to breathe.❞ ❝That monster's comin' and it don't care for you or me.❞ ❝Don't look back now honey, just try to breathe, that monster's comin' and it don't care for you or me.❞ ❝Oh, the angels we may someday see but we best get a move on, or the devil we will meet.❞ ❝We best get a move on, or the devil we will meet.❞
07 METAPHOR ❝I've gotten good at leaning on metaphors.❞ ❝I've gotten good at living on someone else's page.❞ ❝I cut my teeth on secondhand sentiments.❞ ❝You can't trust a single thing I say.❞ ❝I keep my closet free of skeletons because I'm much better at digging graves but I always dig up bones in your sympathy.❞ ❝I can't trust a single thing you say.❞ ❝Don't look too hard, because you won't like the scars he left in me.❞ ❝I've gotten good at making up metaphors.❞ ❝I've gotten good at stretching the truth out of shape.❞ ❝All these words are sweet and meaningless, you can't trust a single thing I say.❞
08 THE HAND THAT FEEDS ❝I've seen good men spoiled, chained to their jobs like hounds. They work and sleep and work again. In the darkest nights, they howl.❞ ❝No man should stand to work all of his days and have nothing at the end of them.❞ ❝I got no money but the change that jingles in my pockets reminding me how little I have.❞ ❝As for time, I am powerless to stop it, it keeps rambling on like a mad, wandering man.❞ ❝My papa was a howlin' man, traded in his youth, sold his dreams and all of his days for the great American ruse.❞ ❝My dear papa gave me lessons in regret. He said all that he'd done would be for nothing if I followed in his steps.❞ ❝My papa taught me how to howl, how to bare my teeth, and growl.❞ ❝The hand that feeds deserves to be bitten when it beats.❞ ❝He taught me how to break my chains and that money ain't worth a thing.❞ ❝No man should get more of my time than me.❞ ❝I may never be a rich man but I can make sure that I am free.❞ ❝I may never be a rich man but the rich man will never have me.❞
09 LITTLE SOLDIERS ❝It was a march we made towards ruin and despair but we held hands all the while.❞ ❝I swear that I loved you.❞ ❝Beneath the table you would offer up my bones and all the dogs would lick your fingers.❞ ❝I dragged you through every room inside our home but you still held me at night.❞ ❝I swear that you loved me.❞ ❝We didn't give up, we wouldn't dare surrender. It was an honest loss.❞ ❝Now the aftermath will ring with songs you've sung.❞ ❝All of our words sent home in boxes.❞ ❝I fought with tooth and nail before the flag had flown but you were already gone.❞
10 SLEEPING GIANTS ❝I feel the mountains shifting under me.❞ ❝The sleeping giants are finally waking.❞ ❝My pulse is clear, rushing in my ears I hear something calling me.❞ ❝I hear something calling me.❞ ❝The moon is humming lovely melodies.❞ ❝The forest echoes, the trees are crowing hungry, hungry harmonies.❞
11 OF EVERLONG ❝Out of the ocean, over the harbor lay no sons and lay no daughters.❞ ❝Among the mountains of everlong 'twas there I wrote me a sad, sad song.❞ ❝If my lover will not heed it take my voice and take my spirit.❞ ❝Leave me weakened and dig my hole.❞ ❝Only my lover, not I, can keep my soul.❞
12 NEVER LOVE AN ANCHOR ❝On some level I think I always understood that these hands of mine were clumsy, not clever.❞ ❝I tried to do the best that I could but try as I might I couldn't bring myself to hold you.❞ ❝It’s a secret I keep tucked inside my chest with this heart of mine that's guilty not remorseful.❞ ❝There is love that doesn't have a place to rest but it would have buried you if it had settled on your shoulders.❞ ❝On some level I think I always understood that a ship could never really love an anchor. So, I did the only thing that I could and severed the rope to set you sailing from my harbor.❞ ❝There are times when I still wonder about you. You are someone I have loved but never known.❞ ❝You’ll never see the reasons I had for keeping my claws away when they were close enough to hurt you.❞ ❝I am selfish, I am broken, I am cruel. I am all the things they might have said to you.❞ ❝Do you ever think of me and my two hands and wonder why they never soothed your fevers? And wonder why they never tied your shoes and wonder why they never held you gently and wonder why they never had the chance to lose you?❞
13 NEW DISCOVERY ❝I want to stand on the edge of the water and see horizons stretch on forever.❞ ❝I want to know that there are lands not yet touched by human hands. I want to be the one to find them.❞ ❝Sometimes I feel like I'm lost in a desert and every dune is the same as the other.❞ ❝I know where I've been and these steps I take won't go to waste if I'm moving towards something.❞ ❝I want to believe there's something left for me.❞ ❝I want to kindle a love that doesn't age even when all the years carve lines into your face.❞ ❝Tell me I will be surprised when I think I've memorized every touch and every thought.❞ ❝I want you to prove me wrong.❞ ❝I want to believe there's something left for me, a new discovery waiting for me.❞
