PostsChallengesPortalsAuthorsBooks
Sign Up
Log In
Posts
Challenges
Portals
Authors
Books
beta
Sign Up
Search
Profile banner image for InvisibleWriter
Profile avatar image for InvisibleWriter
Follow
InvisibleWriter
Write to remember what you might otherwise forget
230 Posts • 84 Followers • 62 Following
Posts
Likes
Challenges
Books
Challenge
Devil May Care
The root of all evil, a tale of impossible redemption, or a nightclub owner in LA. What is the devil you hold in your heart, and how can you make us feel the angst, hatred, or regret of the original edgelord himself? Lucifer, Satan, Old Scratch. Misunderstood or worthy of fear, you decide.
Profile avatar image for InvisibleWriter
InvisibleWriter
12 reads

In a name

I named the devil in my heart at the age of 21, when the world decided to hand another one of my friends a gun to play with. They go bang, if you didn't know that already. I named that devil grief, although I suppose a more apt name would have been to call him bitter. I've been a marionette for that devil since I was eight years old, when he was just a stranger and didn't need a name. Now I linger on puppet strings, my tears an accent to the organ songs played at every funeral. He comes around so often that most people would say we're close enough to call each other friends. Maybe it'd be easier if the only game being played was age, then at least I'd only be rolling the dice against time and expectation. But this devil plays with knives, stabbing through the back, striking through the heart. He plays with ropes and guns and the lungs of little girls. He plays with memories and mistakes, with heartbreak and heart attacks. He plays with age too, he takes too soon. He turns my grief to anger, to bitterness, to spite. He turns it into two fingers raised high to the sky, slowly stripping away my ability to cry. I named him grief as a reminder. I named him grief to remind myself of what sits at the impetus of all of my actions. I named him grief to give less weight to the bitterness and the hate that festers inside. He may sit inside my heart, and he might puppet half my moves. But I have named my devil grief and I've been told that names have power.

5
2
1
Challenge
Cupid's Arrow
Haiku (5-7-5)
Profile avatar image for InvisibleWriter
InvisibleWriter in Haiku
15 reads

first

Cupid shot me twice

So I could love myself first

and love you, later

<3

6
3
0
Challenge
Whodunnit?
If your birthmark is the wound, who put the knife in your back?
Profile avatar image for InvisibleWriter
InvisibleWriter
15 reads

his touch

His hands used to sit at the curve of my waist

Pulling me closer

lingering near the edge of my spine

and in the good moments it was sweet

and in the others it was a cage

when his touch felt like possession

and I stopped knowing who I was

it is a different kind of death to lose yourself

when the memory of his touch is imprinted on your skin

a type of wound that will never bleed

but still tugs at your heartstrings

2
1
0
Challenge
Escape from the Asylum
Any Style
Profile avatar image for InvisibleWriter
InvisibleWriter
14 reads

Outside of my white room

I twist and turn

stretching for a desire that I don’t know how to verbalize

I crack my spine

and leave crescent moon indents in the skin alongside my ribs

my arms hug my body

with no straightjacket to keep them there

because freedom is an unfamiliar taste when you’ve been fed routine

and it stings the tongue in the same way that spice does

it leaves you wanting more

but the escape is mine

and I will claim that pain infinitely

2
1
0
Challenge
"Come back. Even as a shadow, even as a dream." - Euripides
Poetry
Profile avatar image for InvisibleWriter
InvisibleWriter in Poetry & Free Verse
38 reads

I came back kaleidoscopic

I shattered into kaleidoscopic fractals

and maybe I came back wrong

replacing every part of me

losing my identity

counting slow exhales into cold winter air

I think I was trying to prove that I was still there

I felt like the ship of Theseus

Asking the question on if every part of me has changed, could I still be the same?

I’m stuck in a daze

Am I wasting my days?

burn my tongue on coffee for adrenaline

spend an hour in the shower to see if the hot water might wash my brain

the city doesn’t sleep and neither do I

I learn the moon is prettier when the time is after three

I’m chasing a pattern that I don’t understand

And the world keeps turning me

twisting me into something new

I came back kaleidoscopic

changing and chasing

beautiful

shattered

fractures

8
2
2
Challenge
Table
so much happens at the table, maybe it's the Thanksgiving table, or worktable, whichever, make the narrative center around the table, poetry or prose :)
Profile avatar image for InvisibleWriter
InvisibleWriter in Flash Fiction
26 reads

Cards on the table

I meet you at the table

We play our cards as they’re dealt

I call your bluff

You don’t call mine

You leave me at the table

Leave your cards on the table

Leave your heart on the table

I keep mine

Flush away my emotions in pursuit of the game

You leave straight away

We meet again at another table

Years down the line

The eye contact Deja vu from another time

but we’re playing a new game

Given new cards

Given a chance for a different call

I meet you at the table

5
2
1
Profile avatar image for InvisibleWriter
InvisibleWriter in Poetry & Free Verse
21 reads

call him Casper

I gave you everything.

or at least what my childhood self thought everything was

I let myself play pretend with the memory

as if I hadn’t given you the best of me

you slipped yourself out of my life easier than you had slipped in

and it’s not like you owed me a damn thing

but I thought the time spent meant you would at least say goodbye

But you were playing games.

and when you passed GO, you collected your $200 and left me behind

losing a game I didn’t know I was playing

and I’m left paying rent on the space you take up in my mind

wondering why I care less about you and more about the way you left

and I think back to the last time that I saw you.

when I left a can open on the table

jenga blocks spilling on the floor

I let you spin my head round

half a drink in, losing the game and my judgment

only it wasn’t really lost

I chose to leave it behind

and I wonder if it’s still sitting there

the way my last text is still sitting on your phone

wondering when all these games really end

4
4
0
Challenge
Sexku
Write a haiku about sex.
Profile avatar image for InvisibleWriter
InvisibleWriter in Haiku
23 reads

a timeline of thought

then, a pedestal

when, higher expectations

now, it just exists

before, I thought more

during, it could have been us

after, only me

2
2
0
Challenge
Daylight… saved, spent, wasted?
“I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.” —Jack London
Profile avatar image for InvisibleWriter
InvisibleWriter in Stream of Consciousness
18 reads

I run through life and deadlines

I squeeze every inch of time out of my calendar

Please stop telling me to slow down

I want you to run with me

Chase me on this journey we call life

I’m willing to make everything happen

I’ll lose sleep and my body to make time for living my life

living our life

I don’t need you to go my speed

I just need you to keep following

to intersect our orbits

I’m never going to stop running in circles

but I’ll treat our collision points with passion

I’ll steer myself to run along the path you walk

I’ll love you

but I will live first.

3
2
1
Challenge
There appears to have been a struggle…
Double Drabble Challenge. Write a short story (exactly 200 words), horror/suspense/thriller— any genre you choose, really, just make it exciting. There are multiple prizes available: Winner gets $5, runners-up $4, and honorable mentions $2. Have fun :)
Profile avatar image for InvisibleWriter
InvisibleWriter
24 reads

and it was still

The faint sounds of a piano trailed down the hallway from the ballroom. Anthony was sure his sister had locked herself in again, drowning her crises out with music. The ballroom was her sanctuary, the echoes of open space the closest Elise could get to escaping the castle walls.

A resounding crash interrupted his musings and the music that had been playing only moments prior.

Peering into the ballroom, a thousand crystal shards lay shattered across the floor. Above them, the dull metal chain of the chandelier was still, almost eerie in its lonesome, hanging unadorned from the ceiling.

Anthony took a step forward.

"Elise?" He called. The room was silent. He sidestepped each of the crystal shards, fragments of his reflection mirrored in every one.

"Elise?" Worry etched itself into his tone. The piano in the corner lay uncovered, adorned with sheet music. Anthony watched the papers rustle in the breeze, pausing. All seven of the glass windows were open, wind pushing the curtains to and fro, sending whispers across the floor, and a shiver down his spine.

What was happening?

Elise was missing, the wind was blowing, and somehow the chain from the fallen chandelier remained still. Unmoved.

4
3
1
Welcome
Welcome to Prose.! Publish your work, follow writers, and engage in community challenges.
By using Prose., you agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.
If you used Twitter or Facebook to get into your account and now can't get in, please contact us at support@theprose.com