She fell off the earth as she stepped away. A one line goodbye and that's all she would say...

I stood there, a makeshift soldier broken and bent.

Dipping in and dipping out. Euphoria and pain feel the same when you're free, a distant thought, in a different world. Drunk and unaware.. Just broken bones and shifting thoughts.

The Reaper grew anxious, as my breaths slowed. A sudden crisis inside a muddled mind. It was too easy to go, there was chaos and fear and mumbles words of "I love you..."

Death stole my breaths and stepped away. Like something weak, He faded away. Into the darkness of Nowhere, Kentucky.

There were lights and there were voices. Colliding into nothing and fear. Someone somewhere, between heaven and hell and Here...held my hand and drew me back.

Drew me back from the starlit skies and the candy colored fear.

The blood was crimson and dark and matted through my hair and it dripped into something obscure and beautiful and lost.

I felt you leave, before you left...

Hello, Writers and Dear Readers.

What does dating a mortician, roadkill shoutouts, Shakespeare, tons of talent new to the site and our resident legends, a bad haircut, and over the counter flu meds have in common? The answer needs to be, "Nothing," but in today's video, each of those elements, and a few more, collide into each haiku in our last Challenge of the Week being read, after introducing the new Challenge of the Month, with a bit of pizzazz on this one.

Here's that link.

https://www.theprose.com/challenge/14207

And here's the link to the video on The Prose. Channel. I know for sure I dropped or misread a few words or usernames, but show mercy, if you would. I'll tag some of the writers in the comments, and a few writers new to Prose.

And, to them, from us: Big family home here. Pick a room, and walk downstairs for the feast, whenever you feel like it. Welcome home.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FIElCwRN3Y

And.

As always.

Thank you for being here.

-The Prose. team

Hello, Writers and Dear Readers.

In today's vid, we feature a triple threat, to say the very least. Writer, painter, musician, tattoo artist, and on and on. Click the link to the channel and check out this low-key and humble, high-art man of talents. He's right here on our site.

And before any of you decide to take a swipe at the old man, I'm aware that I mispronounced n'ere. But I rolled with it...

Here's the link.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTGysKxtx1o&t=19s

And.

As always.

Thank you for being here.

-The Prose. team

Aria. Awake in bed, arms above her head, stomach rising and falling with breath. Ginger on her tongue. Abdomen, rye. Her mind, steel. Blackened. The pills only hurt, so she kicked without any help. Four years back. Four days of dread, brain snaps, tingles in her fingers and toes, palpitations. Heart on edge. Four more days of a hole in her chest. Withdrawals. Synthetic. Four more days of recovery, and four more days to clear the way.

Withdrawn.

Without synchronicity.

Always kick on a Monday. Allow Sunday to be the gate.

She kicked on a Monday. Midnight to end Sunday. It had been that way with liquor, with cigarettes, with sugar. She put nothing in the way of feel. Her walls were plenty without help. Her father built the first one, but she had learned control with the first line of ink. Lightning strike, once to remain alone, forever. No other line would be so new. No other pain shocking. Graffiti for the walls, for her own understanding, for her understanding of alone. For her love with it, their affair. On her back. Quilt over glass. Moonrise.

 —Four years back, she kicked on a Monday. Midnight. Sunday behind her to show the week it would give itself over or lose her. Wild pig days, itching blood. Taper Sunday to midnight. Clean sheets. Showered and in bed. Breathed up into the night, remembered a story of stars up there, the belt of Orion, the burning of light. Eskimos whose souls would find Heaven stepping up the stars of his belt. Three on the rise up. Open arms of somebody never dead. The story of it, the sadness.

Her sadness. A psalm of the city. A flower filled with blood. Unmoving.

A plant in her heart. It grew only when she shed what was not needed.

She was a flower grown from the city, and it was proud, so proud even death would not usurp her. Her skin graced by the city, the design, the product it pushed. She was vindicated through crawling up a victim. Now the faces of the city were there to keep the flower strong, to keep it alive. With the city as her only love, the nightmares had stopped with her addictions. The city saw to that. When the sadness would punctuate its reach, the city only moved faster to heal.

Her face in the mirror. Sunfall. The lights along the awnings breathed possibilities into the sidewalk, breathed sleaze. One stroke of eyeshadow twice, one carton of juice drained, and the elevator spat her out. The landlord smiled. Lobby. Aria gave her a nod, a late-night-at-the-office sigh, and the landlord laughed, watched her walk away, to someplace offering risks meaning memories. What she would not give to be in the skin, the youth of her, the years facing forward from her. Behind the counter, what the old woman would never know. The eyes of men and lesbians would mean much to her, the smell of the stage, the degenerates, as long as they would want her, she would give herself to them. The years behind the counter. The city was her thief, but she knew nothing righteous. Her eyes clung to the coat of Aria. Long, black. Her hair blue and white, the city opened with neon, prostrated in wait, when her boots would touch the concrete, the city would begin. The landlord looked away.

Aria disappeared through the door.

Tall Jack Coke. He drank half. Two drunks sat facing the bottles blocking the mirror. One drunk spoke to him, but the other cut him off, a pat on the forearm. The stranger spoke to no one but the bartender, and even now the words became one nod: Two shots, a pint, and a tall Jack Coke down the road. The drunk shrugged it off, and they focused on the two women. The bartender looked over the shoulder of the stranger, out the window, while Aria walked past for the place next door, where she would remain until four in the morning, where she would pull in more than any attorney in the city. The drunks and the women followed his stare. The drunks laughed at the bartender, his lust, they laughed along. They knew her silhouette as much as the others. Aria went into the building next door. The bartender shook his head and uttered one word.

“Beautiful.”

Beautiful. The stranger stared into his glass. The word rested upon his lips, a dead thing. Beautiful. Did not come close. The word could not approach her. Aria. Beautiful. It cheapened her. Diluted.

Beautiful.

A useless, shiny adjective.

The name was not lost on him. She was a flower reborn by the city. His. He would wait for the time to tell her what she was, when she would listen to him, when he would make the connection fixed for the time ahead. A flower. His. A child risen from the city, into his own. Like the plant from the blood of Robinson Jeffers, the line from the book had scratched him. Long scar. Unmoved beneath the sky her ghost set over him. The flower in his blood, Aria. Her fingers set in ink, born from the city, meant only to move through his hair. Moving through obsidian. Burn the film off his body. Nothing smelled as sweet as blood.

Her blood. It sat in his, trapped by him. When she would move he would feel it. Next door she would work the stage, the faces. When the other girls would spray and wipe the pole after their time, it made her sick, so she never went near it. Aria. No inversions, no slow slides down, no ascents to communize her, no bills handed to her or placed upon her. Their money, on the foot of the stage in front. The faces in the crowd, the look from them. The bodies beneath her. On stage, in dream to get her through, she would watch them burn to bone and ash. The other girls, how they went nude and often beyond, rejects of the city reaching for its grace. Outstretched, ignored. Aria, not once exposing her body as nude, not having to. Her mystery piped in from the city, the Moon on high, the lights and the sick things filtered for her, for the view of the city to keep it for its own. The city. The air as flesh, the rain as veins, the night sky as blood. Aria, her flesh as rain. Next door, the stranger finished his drink and walked out.

Silhouette walking west. The old man watched and it was no more. On his back there, dirt cooled, the night receding lighter. Torn back by dawn, when the city put him to sleep, when the light would bore the artists, the thinkers, the hunters. Light in the city, the expansion of lungs, only levered because it had to be. Tolerated. Daylight for the adopted. Loved just enough. They had to be there for business. Landscape and lifting. Commerce and order, base work. When the Sun would fail, the real blood woke and waited for the naked stars.

—From The Velocity of Ink, a book I wrote, and one I'm reading for Audible. Here's a link for the narration of the chapters above, if you want to hear it. Thanks to @Mamba for creating the photos to go along with the read on YouTube. Here's the link.

https://youtu.be/nCNPIuBK_uw

Here's the link to the book.

https://jeffstewartauthor.com/the-velocity-of-ink/

I said something about Immortality

As she packed a blunt.

She was young and lost inside herself and

She somehow fancied me wise and somewhat noble.

Her hazel eyes were strained, exhausted and stoned.

Some irreversible confusion had settled around the darkened lines. She was perfect and I was gonna hurt her and I knew it.

She didn't seem nearly as convinced.

But...I was bad for her and I'd made that clear from the start.

I'd seen her a year before, drunk at the end of some stupid night and some makeshift bar. She was feigning rebellion in some faded black V neck. I'd taken off her off brand Ray-Bans and handed her my Versace's. Some sordid, calculated line to get her back to my room. She'd smiled then and reached for my hand.

I'd lied about the engraved elven band and she'd laughed...some naive, innocent giggle. Uncharacteristic of the tattooed, hardass exterior she produced. But, I let her fingers fumble with mine, for a moment... before she drew it back and glanced awkwardly around.

And here we were now. Her eyes meeting my glance in some bizarre sense of shame and tension. Some Madonna song as the soundtrack and I knew I'd fuck her. Even with my bruised jaw and her ashamed eyes and all our lies.

And into the massive abyss

I fell.

A world within a mind,

a universe untouched.

Reality is all my own –

this is now a dream awakened.

Those men come marching –

their faces of ticking clocks,

though backwards with time,

spinning wildly.

They open their mouths to me.

And, like fireworks,

out erupts a flock of songbirds,

carrying with them a tune that ignites the magic from within my soul.

A serenade for me.

Then –

the great eagle descends.

Watch how the oaks bear their arms

for his perch.

And I revel in this mastery,

this mystery.

The giant bird sits –

he watches my pondering,

and stares at my thoughts.

The limbs of those trees

extend far beyond their own capabilities now

as they strip me bare

to this fantastic, colorful land.

A liveliness in nature.

A parade of faceless images appear –

and under the ashen smoke, the navigate their dance so precisely.

So uniquely. The intrigue stroking at my sanity.

The luminescent soldiers come forward now,

touching me.

But what a wondrous surprise in their cuff to my flesh!

Making me quiver

in only what I could imagine a great holiness to be.

A metallic, 4-dimensional rainbow bursts alive –

oh, how it streaks about so confidently

along the innocent blue skies.

Its glowing spirit of essence

illuminating the mossy earth below my feet.

I feel it awaken -

a childhood memory to everything the universe has eyed upon,

all it had ever felt,

and it covers me.

A warm, safe blanket.

Security. Peace.

I am not afraid,

sheathed in a gloss of an ever-living dream.

And, oh, how so tenderly it cradles me in its arms –

I can taste upon the breast,

and of the life inside,

as those distant, soothing melodies venture towards my ears.

I can feel the swell

of a new evolution begin.

A renewal.

A birth.

The wings of the eagle spread –

and how exquisitely they are seen,

displayed bravely,

as they shine of a peacock’s dandy nature.

I see.

Falling down upon me,

twirled sensually in an emotional vision,

is a dimly lit brightness lost in the freedom of a feather’s flutter.

Painted.

Artistically captured

though its intensity to never be shown face.

It surely is a vision to behold!

I stand,

and with newfound eyes I see,

the beauty in me.

As the festive dance of a perfect season’s day expands,

and ever so cheerfully,

a bewilderment that lays in the anarchy of happiness reincarnates –

and how that old and mutated cocoon shed itself

from the pricks of my skin!

For I now have wings!

The eagle calls to me –

I follow.

This place is now my own;

a belonging.

She asked me to see the stars and I had nodded in an absent trance. There was too much noise in my ears and too many lines in my nose. But, she wanted to see the southern skies through my eyes. And Williamsburg mountain wasn't a hop skip and a jump, but she was there. An hour drive to heaven and peace and her wrapped in my arms. An hour drive to show her something in me, something unsettled...yet rooted and wild. And so I lit a joint and slid in shotgun. A far cry from the noisy bar on main street.

She took my joint and I took her hand. Feigning for a cigarette, I fumbled for my dispo, just to take a hit. Needing something. Something more familiar than the sound of her voice, singing quietly along with the silky tones of Lana del Rey.

*We were Born to Die or we were immortal.

Tonight nothing made sense *

The roads were empty. 2 a.m and counting and her hand was on my inner thigh. Resting easy and comfortable. We turned the curve and shifted down. The hum of the engine and the softs sounds of the radio melted together, into some melodic hum...with fireflies and crickets and the sounds of the Appalachian Mountains, swaying in and out of my mind. Torn and broken, addled by drink and drug...

I felt her lips against my neck. Warm, soft and inviting. I pulled away, for a moment.

A tinge of guilt.

And then I pulled her closer, kissed her deeper before I let the walls rebuild...

I stepped outside and she followed, sheepish.

I pointed out the constellations,

As her hands slid beneath my shirt. A sudden give inside of me...and I gave into to the softness of her touch, calloused fingers exploring my skin. I leaned into her and gave in.

Naked flesh finding naked flesh. She was warm and wet and ready.

And the quiet moans, as I slid inside of her, seemed to echo through swaying pines.

We watched the sunrise from the hood of her benze. Lost somewhere in the coming sun and our discretions.

Hello, Writers and Dear Readers.

Big and fat Monday, as usual. Challenge of the Week CCXXV is here since yesterday, but we make it official across the airwaves in our new video, along with the winner of last week's CotW, as well as shedding some light on two talents new to Prose. To greet them with a martini, and to just tune in to poke at the talking monkey, the link is waiting beneath the new Challenge of the Week's right below this sentence.

https://theprose.com/challenge/14026

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeqBJTqsl88

And.

As always.

Thank you for being here.

-The Prose. team

Hello, Writers and Dear Readers.

What do you do when the words hibernate? This question leads a trio of styles on the channel today. Here's the link to these brilliant and beautiful beasts of talent and eye.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80KKL4r9RhI

And, and always...

Thank you for being here.

-The Prose. team