For Dear Life
the aphid sees itself
as it hangs
eye candy,
for the lady birds
like a ripe emerald
pendulant around
the apple of the throat
a repulsive delight
sees itself
suspended
by spindly feet as
a dew drop reflects
the circumstance
of holding on
by a straw,
recognized
for what it is,
by human passersby's
05.19.2024
Aphids on the Underside challenge @Last
Whither
and whether,
wherever I go
whatever I am
I am set in wind
I am in season
yes I am, always,
in heat of winter
on the outskirts of Argentina
I'm in season, even
in the cool Swedish tundra
midnight sun unsettling
mid May to middle July
and in Amazonian
August droughts
my umbrella's
still held up
in demand
for the
current
rainy
season
05.18.2024
Personify the four Seasons challenge @AJAY9979
Hazy Shade of Winter, Less Than Zero, pills, sheet walls, redaction, and deciding to live.
From a hit by The Bangles, to the bloody and '80s adulating reach of American Psycho, episode number 38 starts and ends with more bangs than a West Texas brothel in the 1800s. Seven writers from the site complete the landscape here, with a lead by area_man, and wrapped nicely with thePearl and Mariah, so you know the new blood between them holds its mud.
Here's the link to the show.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLsEjqj8g6s
And here are the pieces featured on Prose. Radio.
https://www.theprose.com/post/816235/when-the-zoloft-hits https://www.theprose.com/post/816024/searching https://www.theprose.com/post/816017/they-call-her-fickle
https://www.theprose.com/post/816230/the-day-i-decided-to-live https://www.theprose.com/post/816225/if https://www.theprose.com/post/816122/i-redact-my-forgiveness
https://www.theprose.com/post/816108/perceived
And.
As always.
Thank you for being here.
-The Prose. team
In Blood
Dear Plexiglassfruit,
Of all the letters I may have sent, I have never written to my mother-- my real mother. I suppose I never believed that she was there, waiting, as recipient, and I'm not sure what I would have said, in years past, on paper.
My mother-in-law says she cannot imagine, as a mom, not being proud of me. She is very kind. There is pride, and Pride; and I have understood that for my mother I am on the cold inverse of the sentiment. Mother puzzles over me and makes comparisons. I tacitly admit the rationale. I make odd choices; everyone voicing an opinion, has told me as much.
Mother has graciously let it go after all, as notable, but uninteresting. We both know that I don't have anything to offer her--- I am useless as a backscratcher. There is simply nothing I can do for her, pragmatically. She has lived life as a sort of barter, with the eye on always coming up ahead. Having expected a man to take care of her, she has learned that money takes care of her. She steels herself to this state of affairs.
She told me a few years ago that, for Enlightenment, I am not ready.
(*My sister, yes; She has paid her dues, I suppose.)
I can only marvel at the confidence of the proclamation. I lay no claims, and wouldn't dare cast judgement... I guess I hadn't much thought about reaching Enlightenment, sitting out here in the dark peripheries of our misunderstandings. My childish hope was that we take care of each other.
If I were to write to my Mom, in abstraction of all that binds us in our interpersonal experience, I would write something she would likely dismiss as "dispassionate essay:"
Dear Mother,
Motherhood is not at all what I expected.
You cryptically said to me, a couple years in, when my child was almost three that "Now" I understand, and know. Truly, I do not. I rather sense some discrepancies in our perceptions and acknowledge the inaccuracy of my own viewpoints. The insinuation I feel is that, now, presumably I understand what it is to be pegged. Saddled. Of course, with affection and responsibility. Because that is the sentiment that I associate with our family reflection of child rearing-- The burden wrought.
And I observe the key differences that may or may not have been fully voiced. That motherhood "happens" in different ways. It has been expressed as lament, in our family circle, as the limitation of self. The facts remain, Mother, that you yourself said you were "not ready," and my sister though eager, was "surprised" by pregnancy. You've each countered that I was so reluctant and calculated as to "sap the Romance out of it"... well, certainly everyone's notion of such fantasy is varied. I have never doubted anyone's Love, in the short- or long-term.
I understand that having a child, or children, is tiring. The state of being on alert, all the time, is not necessarily shared by all parents though. I have learned this in watching the families of my preschool students. I also know it, from being left, so often unattended as a child, without adult supervision; under the care of my sister, two years older, and sometimes not even that. I understand the impulse that sometimes overwhelms and makes a parent want to withdraw. I have felt it.
For whatever it was that made you want to pull away, Mom, I am sorry.
I hope I never hit you, pinched you, scratched you, spit at you, demeaned you or otherwise made you feel faced with contempt. I am wracking my memory for any such incident and cannot remember. And I cannot think of a thing more heartbreaking, abusive and demoralizing. A form of domestic violence that has no legal recourse, the abuser being a minor and outside of the law.
So, as you have doubtlessly wondered: what then do I think of Motherhood? I have not found that being a parent is aww and diapers, sleepless nights, and adventures. That was understood. To be sure, I expected it to be, for lack of a better word, "work." I hoped for Motherhood, as an ideal; an opportunity I suppose. I was looking to be fully present, and now, have these constant questions: ...Have I done the right things? Where have I gone wrong? ...What can I do to make a correction for my apparent, yet undeciphered, errors? ...for surely, the evidence shows, if only in my own sight, that I am doing something not right... to have fears about my child.
Of all of this, naturally, you are unaware. You are not here; pictures sent show only smiles, and I have said nothing, except the underlying truth that yes, I am happy to be a Mom.
Perhaps it is of these misgivings that you speak of... when you say, "Now...you know."
M.
Tarantino’s, “They,” write like you’re dead, new blood, life, warmth, and seamless beauty.
Quentin Taranatino's good sense inspired today's intro for number 34, and it leads us through a landscape of words and instinct and a whole lot of lovin' goin' on, baby. Some new blood opens the words, and it goes from there, into the places only the writers on this site can create.
Here's the link to the show.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRD-Y7R4X5E
And here are the featured pieces.
https://www.theprose.com/post/815107/take-off https://www.theprose.com/post/815199/life https://www.theprose.com/post/815120/colonoscopyas-where-you-cope
https://www.theprose.com/post/812774/of-warmth https://www.theprose.com/post/815122/driving-home https://www.theprose.com/post/815121/gone-fishing
And.
As always...
Thank you for being here.
-The Prose. team.
Life
take it
and I don't mean
"the Good with..."
but take it
bald faced eagle
and lying
upside down
pick at it
as true
carve it
sprawling
raw
into
the 'morrow
to the bone
that's some thing
like old Styrofoam
permanent marker'd
with personal initials
in boil, dribble
and in regret,
as it crumbles
in vice grip
of mind's
mother
feedin' vultures
and know, in the arrow
Death will take me,
broken,
but it will never
have you.
05.10.2024
The best way to live in a broken world challenge @putski
Driving Home
the fast hiss
or slow sigh
from the map
or the tire,
on a whim,
is misnamed
.........Escape
.......................
grounding itself,
prostrate, clawed,
and towed against
the universal will...
leveled, when all that
can be placed, is,
atmospherical;
the w/hole
was there,
.........dually
....................
uninterpreted
My Lover
Angry she seeks to usurp my lover.
Unkind words cut deep, wounds my soul.
But my lover eases my pain.
Paper stained by black ink.
With words that only have meaning to me.
My lover is a dream, shapeless,
Like the fantasy that stirs me on.
Elusive like the innocence I have long lost.
Angry, she strikes out
Little realizing the cost of another good-bye
Waiting just around the bend.
My lover eases my pain,
With words that flow with neither rhyme nor reason,
Just the comforting of a friend.
My lover is the words that spring from my pen.
My lover is the reflection of all that hides in my soul.
My lover is the dream only I've come to know