10th Place! 2025 NYC Midnight Rhyming Story Competition: Final Round

Although I was grateful and ecstatic to reach the final round of the rhyming competition, I was also terrified. I wasn't scared that I would get trounced; making it to the final round was already an accomplishment! Nor was I scared of receiving devastatingly critical feedback; it is valuable to know how others interpret and digest my writing. I was afraid for a much more mundane, stupid reason.

Final rounds are "open genre."

I know, I know. Terrifying.

The people-pleasing side of me that I still haven't quite squashed hates nothing more than an open, "whatever you want" prompt for a competition. I thrive on deadlines and direction. Fitting the ideas that spring from prompts into a certain genre or topic feels like a puzzle, and I greatly enjoy a puzzle. Every time a teacher said an essay could be about "whatever" within a certain time period, about a certain cultural aspect, or about any type of literature, I wilted. I don't even like choosing where to eat on date nights, and you want me to make this type of decision? How dare you!

The other prompts for this round included the theme of "on the fence" and the emotion of "flabbergasted." I actually wrote two different, full stories for this, but eventually decided on the one with which I had more of an emotional, personal connection. Without further ado, please enjoy "Something to Savor".

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Something to Savor

A woman considers her options as she learns the ups and downs of caregiving for her aging mother.

There were two things running through maman’s veins:

dancing, and that damn disease in her brain.

The latter has been going on for some years. 

The dancer reemerged. At least, her fears.

This morning she won’t eat her pancakes or eggs.

She pushes her plate. “Carbs go straight to your legs!”

A frequent refrain from when I was a child. 

Every bite she observed, counted, reviled.

I swallow the bitterness coating my tongue,

the burnt taste familiar from when I was young.

We worked through this fight in decades long past,

but the neurons that knew this are long outcast.

There’s so much I don’t know, what her life involved.

What things awakened her, what things unresolved?

I know maman spent her youth on tippy-toes,

clad in pinks and tutus, in plaits and in bows. 

Her talent grew, and so did the pressure

to stay thin and tiny, obsessed with measure.

Like grand-mére before her, maman is now fading.

With bills and cleaning my mother needs aiding.

When she cared for her mother, the roles reversed,

did maman also feel like her heart would burst?

I see her regressing, each day a bit more.

No one said caregiving would feel like a war. 

Lost on the battlefield, decisions unmade,

I question what’s best for her, utterly afraid.

Should she stay here with me, risking further strain?

Would sending her elsewhere better things attain?

The indecision clogs in my throat,

Acidic and rancid, with no antidote.

Now she looks to me, childhood in her head.

Hoping for a future; her past left unsaid.

On days like these, it is hard to remember,

her memories wobble, balance off-center.

She needs me to assure her, to give her care.

So I reach out a hand. I stroke her grey hair.

I say, “No practice today. Eat what you wish!”

She perks up, she beams, reaching for her dish.

The thin, sweet cakes disappear in a flash.

I praise her appetite, tears on my eyelash.

When she finishes, she turns to me with a plea.

“Could you braid my hair for me, daughter, ma fille?”

I nod, stunned silent by the improbable,

as I run my fingers through her follicles.

Awestruck, I tie her hair up in a bow,

a pink one, of course—that much I know. 

It’s enough that, for now, she knows me again.

I savor that sweet taste of recognition.