“The worst thing that ever happened to you was not the worst thing that ever happened to you. Hating yourself for it was.”
-Andrea Gibson, Lord of the Butterflies
Today’s LitBowl prompt is inspired by this quote from Andrea Gibson’s phenomenal book, Lord of the Butterflies. For more inspiration, get the book below!
Prompt:
Write a piece that uses this quote as its first line. It could be the opening of a letter a character is writing, the start of a conversation between two people, the beginning of a poem, or anything else you’re inspired to create! (Feel free to switch the pronouns as well if it takes you in a better direction: “me” and “myself”, “her” and “herself”, etc.)
Feel free to respond in the comments below! We’ve been loving the responses we’ve received to all of our prompts so far, and we can’t wait to see what you folks keep writing.
Get inspired
“The worst thing that ever happened to you was not the worst thing that ever happened to you. Hating yourself for it was.” Claire told her friend as she put down the phone and left the booth to cross the road. She was headed to a coffeeshop right next to it, “The Nook”, Amsterdam’s cosiest. She was constantly afraid of being run over by a bike and nonetheless she always buried herself in her headphones listening to bands she saw live that year, so as to prolong the feeling of being in a concert. It’s funny how sometimes when a concert is good, you forget all your problems, even the worst things that ever happened to you fail to cross your mind.
The worst thing that ever happened to you was not the worst thing that ever happened to you. Hating yourself for it was. Because no matter how they treated you, no matter what the circumstances were, you let this happen to yourself. The worst thing that ever happened to you might not even be so bad. It might just have been a moment of weakness or an unlucky occasion. What is really bad is your reflection.
You ask yourself
how long ago should I have realized?
why did I allow this to happen?
why did I harm myself?
Getting over the worst thing that ever happened to you requires a small detour: forgiving yourself first.
“The worst thing that ever happened to you was not the worst thing that ever happened to you. Hating yourself for it was.”
This comment easily
finds its way to the center of my chest.
It’s 2020 and my therapist is treating me over the internet.
We’re talking about my ex boyfriend
Who has now been my ex almost as long as we had been together.
3 years.
We talk a lot about him
and how much I know I hurt him.
I talk about things I could have done better and
she reminds me that life would be boring if we never grew
if we never bloomed
if we were instead, stagnant through all of our seasons.
She reminds me that the seasons change
and that they bring new perspectives
some old perspectives, yes,
but some new ones, too.
She doesn’t know I used to describe him
As the first warm day
As melting snow
As the new green buds
on previously dead trees.
She hopes for me
that my flowers bloom with this one.
But I stopped hoping for that
before the spring even started.