We’re all born with 27 acorns of doubt.

Or at least I was, but the caps kept falling off and doubling the number.

I only have two acorns left. I burnt some in the first fire I lit. I was only five at the time, and it was easier to part with doubt then.

As I grew, crows landed daily on my windowsill to ask for an acorn. I said no. They watched me coat one in gold leaf. I smashed five acorns into a crumbled flour and boiled them with vinegar and salt for two continents of time. I filtered the mash through 53 crises.

For a year I painted picture after picture with the acorn tea. I painted in a field as beans yellowed around me and the crows came to take the pictures away. The crows said they were returning them to a meeting hall built over the ashes of my first fire. I remembered that meeting hall: as a child I overheard a sleek American saying that she killed chickens by holding their heads in her hand and then snapping their necks – so. Then she laughed. No, I told the crows. No, they cannot have this.

I recognized the crows then as the ones who carried chicken skulls into the old eucalyptus tree and dropped them and that was also my childhood. No.

Still, the ink had to be used somewhere. What do you do with extra doubt? I tattooed my wrists with all the world’s names for God. It looked like fire.

Yesterday I came across a doe. She was surprised I only had two acorns left, since I kept talking about the disappointment of existing in a crooked world where water slides away when we’re not looking. The doe raised an eyebrow. I was there for confessions so I confessed: I feel exposed with only two acorns left. She asked if I take comfort in God’s name being written on my body like a question mark. I said that God doesn’t mind. She asked what the last two acorns are named. •

Acorns, by Maaike VanderMeer (me).

This piece is inspired, once again, by Victoria Chang. Last month I met Victoria Chang in person and heard her read With My Back To The World in its entirety. It was magical, it is justification for taking a MFA. I blubbered something embarrassing to her about how every time I read her poems I end up writing something new, and that I hope she never stops writing. I think it was equally awkward for both of us.

Here are the lines this piece is inspired by:

“Which is why we’re born with 35 buds of sadness … I only have 3 buds left because I sold most of my grief already.” Victoria Chang

Writing prompt: Make a list of abstract words (love, fear, doubt, fantasy). Make a list of small objects (acorns, buttons, pebbles, peppermints) and choose any number. That’s your starting line! You can experiment with a few combinations – try out a clashing one for fun: We’re all born with 15 peppermints of fear. Once you have your first line, you have your creative constraints: whatever can happen to a peppermint can happen to your fear (Did one get stuck in your mother’s purse? Did the dog steal one? Did you crush one in your pocket when you were supposed to give a speech? Did you swallow one before an important meeting?).

This prompt really does lend unending possibilities. It’s so fun. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!