Neatly written and fatal

Your notes hold more than I can

Words cut autopsies

First, pallor mortis

Pale blue skin, blue lips, blue days

Contagious cobalts

Then, algor mortis

Your coldness then had scared me

Now, frigid’s final

Last, rigor mortis

Could one heart still another

You‘ve laid mass worlds stiff

Just a funeral

Life’s library stuffed in wood

Cold skies, stiff and blue

the sun drowns into the horizon

I watch it bleed blood-orange

greedy and gripping to the day

against the gravity of celestial porridge

and banal boundless black

the sky weighs a blanket of stones

it's bruising into rotting blues

yet there is art in the aches

awe in the golden hour views

and ataraxia in the two-past-nines

we marvel at this

beguiling beauty

of bittersweet death

I am a stitch in a swatch of people

Hush whispering, wheels rolling, walls humming

The bus's lights glow dozing blue and dull

The liminal sings through rhythmic drumming

A man in dirt-caked cargos strums his bass

A woman wearing cleavage cries quietly

The endless strings of souls I can't amass

An archive of loves and lives lost to me

A bloodless voice from speakers above

A boy flees past the doors onto concrete

Never will I see his worn face hereof

The basses strings simmer beneath my feet

Heavy eyes; brush of a bony shoulder

Listerine and cleat cheese down the corner

<>< <>< <><

sweet slow summers,

shy skittish kisses by the swing set,

picking and skipping rocks by the shifting stream.

the soft petals of callow youth fall silently on oblivious grasses.

time has no patience.

how your bloody clock hands are choking me!

now your summers are begging,

and your kisses are begging,

and the stream is crying and burly.

and i beg of u sweet summer water,

let me swim upstream with the spry scarlet salmon,

through the salty blue pacific,

slip by the frothy currents,

and sleep eternally in silky grey sands of innocence.

If I had tomorrow,

with no limits,

I would drive,

drive for as long as need,

I would find a lake,

a big open empty lake,

and I would Just sit.

I would just sit by the lake,

all day long.

sunrise,

to sunset.

All day to myself,

swimming,

paddle Boarding,

watching the water.

Just all day,

by myself,

on the lake,

Tomorrow.

Preteen girls on the playground parked on the curb, plucking their dying daisies,

"Does he love me? Does he not?".

It's unfair- let them be me! I sit on the curb of thirteen- sleepless,

"Am I? Aren't I? I can't be!"

My sweat and tears are dipped in misery, "Do I like her? Do I not?".

If god's there why'd he do this to me, "Why me! Why me!"

The 'normal' girls were content; I was dragged unwillingly.

Is my love not worth these daisies?

So now, when I tell you,

"I am."

How dare you tell me,

"You can't."?

Sweet gossamer of socialites,

I've never felt so damn lonely.

A spectator, silent from sights,

Omniscient reality.

Mind out of bounds- six miles in height.

We laugh and share scam smiles of glee!

I talk yet why do I sound mute?

We are imposters in black suits.

Hello, Writers and Dear Readers.

First off, let me say to the winning entry for last week: I did a long deep-dive into your profile after the narration and congratulations, then my entire setup crashed, rebooted just fine, but trashed a large chunk of the edited video. We'll make it up to you soon with a feature, stand on us. And: Congrats!!!! You wrote one hell of a story.

Also featured is a poem by one of our veteran writers, and it put the staff in a good and somber mood, in all the best ways. See all of this and the new Challenge of the Week just below this sentence.

https://youtu.be/lVdq_kwxGm4

https://theprose.com/challenge/14067

And.

As Always.

Thank you for being here.

-The Prose. team

The shower is cool,

My head is hot.

My breath is begging,

It wants to wail murder.

Apparently, it's not socially acceptable.

I'll settle for this soft onslaught of water,

This snail trail of bubbles.

I can hardly remember,

What birthed this loathing,

This huddle halted in my throat.

The little baby crying?

The lady yelling?

The lack of parking?

Crap, I've been brooding not bathing.

My water bill.

I need to start lathering.

I snag the soap from the shower sill.

It squirms in my wrinkling fingers,

It smiles in pink suds and slithers out.

Plick.

The knot is rising.

It's sitting at the back of my tongue.

Don't let it out.

I bend down to pick up the soap.

It's sly; it slips again.

Plick.

The knot is at my teeth.

And it's learned a silly trick.

It slips through the cracks of my clenched grinding,

An escaped convict.

My knees hit slick white ceramic.

I silently scream.

Mouth wide open.

The white porcelain walls are watching.

My storms are now scalding.

The cold water isn't helping.

I curl.

I can't tell the tears from the shower- still spraying.

The knot is gone.

To hell with the water bill.

The world is a watercolor spill of bleeding oranges and reds. It reminds me of groggy balmy afternoons in the backseat of our Ford, eyes closed, distant soft chatter, sun in my eyes, cheek burning on the hot window. Except, my eyes are open and my lashes are brushing on cheap cloth. My back aches on gritty concrete. Am I being kidnapped? Sold? Killed? I need to breathe. I let gulps of dusty cool air fill my burning insides. A timid set of thuds surround me till I feel hot breath and something soft and wet under my right eye, viscous liquid spills down my face. I can feel my insides madly battling the air, begging to leave in screams. I begin to thrash against soft binds. Breathe. I can smell the manure, faint copper, and dead grass. I still, as if it would help me smell better, escape better; that's when I smell the faraway scent of overripe cherries and old cigarettes. It was Marilynn's signature scent. She was a sweet nurse far younger than Dad who had just married him three weeks ago- though I wasn't close enough to call her mom, a pact of respect silently stood between us. The memory of her sets off a technicolor hit of dizzy recollections; the Ford, a needle, a quiet moon, shouts, cold fingers on my wrist, and Marilynn wrapping rope on my ankles. As the current situation sinks in, shock, confusion, and horror swims in my head. What the hell are Marilynn's intentions? Where is Dad? Was I wrong about her? Was I about to die? My panicked flurry is interrupted by a needle's prick at my inner elbow. I try to scream, to kick, to flip out in protest- but I'm frozen. Familiar cold fingers slowly untie my blindfold, and the previous orangey-red blur turns into the blinding white sun framed by a barns door. At the center of the light is Marilynn. I can barely recognize her, there is worry painting her face and desperation gripping the corners of her eyes. This was not the face of a criminal. Guilt begins to pool at my belly, perhaps the memories were delusions, perhaps I had misjudged her far too quickly. "Baby, I'm so sorry", her eyes shift downwards. I need to move, to do something, say something, but I stand as a spectator in a body that now feels barely my own. "You're just so perfect, I need you", a heavy breath leaves her mouth, and there's an erratic wildness to her movements. Her eyes dart to the cows who roam in the periphery- absolutely oblivious to my world falling in total disarray. "They- the cows aren't enough, I need your sweetness, your soul. You know... I married Steven just for you." My mind is beginning to fog, was it the confusion or maybe the needle? Marilynn slowly brings up two fingers to the side of my neck, and a whisper escapes her, "Your sweet blood". The previous guilt has been replaced with horror, what nightmare had I arrived in? "I don't want to do this, but you don't want me to die, do you honey, I need you!" The edges of the light are going black, and she throws something to the right of me. She's holding a bottle of mouthwash-she swigs from it violently, "Trust me, it doesn't get any easier every week, I don't want to do this." The world is black. I'm too weak to feel anything. The screams in my throat have died. Hot air spills on the right of my neck, "You won't remember this baby, I'll patch you up perfectly", Marilynn whispers, as if to convince herself. With the piercing puncture of teeth into my flesh, and the assaulting smell of metal- my senses disappear. I'm gone.