NaPoWriMo 2025 (April 6th): Cinnamon

From NaPoWriMo 2025, Day Six: Today’s prompt (optional, as always) veers slightly away from our ekphrastic theme. To get started, pick a number between 1 and 10. Got your number? Okay! Now scroll down until you come to a chart. Find the row with your number. Then, write a poem describing the taste of the item in Column A, using the words that appear in that row in Column B and C. For bonus points, give your poem the title of the word that appears in Column A for your row, but don’t use that word in the poem itself.

(You can find the table in NaPoWriMo's post.)

Cinnamon

Wheeze.
it begins in the corners of memory,
where the sun once folded itself into
a brittle, golden ache.
Tongues curl like burnt paper —
heat not of flame
but the slow smirk of time.

Here:
revolutions start not with gunfire
but the hush after spice—
the tremble of a forbidden flavor
smeared across the mouths of the poor.

Wheeze.
says the child with fire in her belly.
Wheeze.
says the preacher drunk on justice.
Wheeze.
says the mural, half-banned but fully breathing
across a riot-worn wall.

Golden is not opulence—
it is defiance.
It is warmth forged from ash and aftermath,
a hunger that swells
even when the feast is gone.

Inhale it.
Burn your lungs with memory.
Sing in wheeze,
for the flavor of revolt
is never sweet,
but it lingers.

- Oizys.