DWB
Chia's heart pounded in her chest as the officer's slow steps approached the Cadillac. She held the pale squirming baby tightly in her arms. She could see Artie's charcoal hands gripping the steering wheel. The officer shined the bright bluish-white light in their faces.
"Where you coloreds going?" He grumbled.
"Missus want us to take her and the babe into Baltimore to see her husband."
The cop looked in the backsest where the little Italian woman was curled over onto herself, deep in a fitful sleep. The police officer tapped on the window but the woman scarcely stirred.
"Please, suh," Artie said.
"Shut up, boy." The officer was jouned by another one now who was shining a bright light at Chia and making the baby cry. "Why ain't she wakin up?"
"She deaf, suh. Deaf and dumb since she a lilun."
The first officer looked at the woman, the baby, then the pair of black people in the front seat. He made a face and peered at his partner, who shrugged.
"Your tail light is out," the officer said. Breaking glass was heard. "Fix it."
The pair of officers left, and Chia sighed.
"Did I do good?" Angelica asked.
"Perfect."
Crazy in Love
Bubbling to the surface, I feel the tension rising far too late to stop it. The foaming of the love-drunk, confused, hurt heart that hits a scar on a snag and remembers all over again the initial cut. Ms. Crow may have pined that the first cut is the deepest, but the madness that infects it hurts the worst. The anguish of blindness towards every lover as my fingers atumble to decipher the Braille of what he's done now. There are never words gentle enough or precise enough to explain that this is the little transgression that pushed Montresor over the edge and made him kick down a wall in an abandoned cellar for his dearly beloved, Fortunato. There is never a good time to reveal the skeletons of stillborn loves in my closet, killed because the lungs couldnt form or the heart didn't beat or the brain didn't develop fast enough for me.
This burgeoning bud is the closest I've gotten to loving anything so genuinely in years, since the last implantation nearly tore me in two when it was ripped out. I now fret over every quickening, not sure if they are butterflies or the early warning signs of a miscarriage. He's too far to assuage any doubts and most remedies are just placebos for the looming question I used to whisper into dandelions before blowing away the seeds and germinating everything in the nearby vicinity with a spreading virus. Love me, love me not. Love me. Love me not. Love me. Get this mass of feelings that can quickly turn into a gasp of sobs or a burst of uncontrollable hot anger and hold it tightly. Love me not. Uproot yourself and walk like a mangrove tree before the seed has enough time to wrap its fibrous roots around you and forces you to be part of its growing process.
Winter is coming, a time when madness gets harder. Dandelion seeds spread by the broken-spirited start to pick and bloom and fight for a place. Viciously and savagely cutting others off like you hear in songs. Misery Business is the work of a dandelion, taught from birth how it's a weed no one wants, and how it will strangle anyone it's near. But I've gone Rogue and tried it anyway, allowed myself to be vulnerable, and got the Angel's wings cut off. Now I sit alone in the wilderness, waiting for the night to be over, wondering if you'll come back again and keep coming back the next day and the one after, or if I've overstepped some unseen boundary and lost another one.
A Bludgeoned Art Form
Better sipped like fine wine, we butcher poetry like college kids desperate to get drunk. Heavy-handed, clunky, and telling lines full of red-ink like in third grade when the form is first unfurled like a fragile baby revealed to its older siblings who longed for it, cared for it and spoke to it softly through the mother's belly. Neither had any idea the torment it would be put through, how poetry would beae scars inflicted upon it by hurt and jealous hearts that pine for love, long for death, and dream of suicide. Left in the most random places, naked, for all to see. From bathroom stalls to spitballed Bostonian pavements, poetry is dropped and forgotten by its maker, who just needed to scream a few lines. There are no edits. There is no technique. Only the too few connoiseurs who still sip their wine and wrap up cozily with poetry and perform careful vivisections of every detail to get the picture. With patience and poise, these few still run their eyes along the wrinkled fabric of emotions and paint an image as they smooth out the edges, pressing and steaming and wiggling, to create a tapestry out of the coil of words they weaved together.
[Insert Eye-Catching Title Here]
Howdy. For those that are new here, I'm AJ and like many of you, I write and like to help other people that write. I haven't been super active lately, and while I'm not here to talk about why I am here, I do feel bad because the things in my life have kept me from helping out a few people with their writing (shout out to @prettyscaries - follow her, she's lovely). My grandfather passed almost a year ago, which hit hard since when my great-aunt passed, I thought I was fine and then... I was in a mental hospital for ten days. So that was fun. In that time, I've gone through a bunch of different jobs and men and yeah, being an adult suchs. Any minors here, the teens isn't your peak, but trust me, you'll find yourself pining for things you fucking despite now.
I digress. I'm here to say that I'm not online all the time, especially not on Prose, and I probably won't be putting out too many stories. I'm working on an animated show that I'm pretty invested in. Given my track record, I'm not sure how long it'll be before my brain is like, "Meh, let's go write about a dolphin with a porn addiction" so I'm chugging along pretty hard to make sure I get as many notes and resources as possible. However, I also spend a considerable amount of time on Reddit (remember that mental breakdown? It led me right to Reddit), and while I love it there, I get really frustrated with the critiques on the writing subs. In fact, a lot about the writing sub can be so unhelpful and pretentious. Plus, it feels like nothing is organized in a way to get people to what they want to find.
So, yesterday, I finally pushed myself to make a subreddit that I have been wanting to for awhile. The sub is called The Writing Rug (just take out the spaces) and is tailored to be like a writing class. The goal at least is to be able to provide feedback and help people get good, useful feedback and banning people who try to discourage writers. I also want to be able to funnel my writing advice that I've given into one place, share the piles of resources I've hoarded over the years (it's a problem, I know), and help people succeed at writing. Since I believe most people I follow (I think there's some bot accounts in there from that debacle) have a lot of potential, I figured I'd share it. Granted, it's obviously still under construction with the goal to be going smoothly by late Septenber, but if you do have a writing question or need advice on something or just wanna see what I'm talking about to be nice (thanks by the way), this could interest you. Anywho, that's my spiel. Thanks for watching! Now, back to your regularly scheduled programming. Cue the TV static!
Trophy
Longing and desire were all I asked for in this relationship. I picked you when we know I could have chosen anyone, asking nothing but a smile in return. The shining rock on your finger and matching ones on your neck and wrists weren't enough, I realized as I watched you dot rouge on your cheeks and pucker your lips for someone else. This someone else who saw you for the last time in my car wearing my clothes, shining like my jewelry. They call it first degree murder though I'd call it defending your title, no matter the cost.
Genesis of Imagination
Waterfalls of acrylic pain shower brown roads
And the cellophane palette dissipates slowly
Into a shower of multicolored tinsel and gems.
The family steps out, curious of the new world.
The mother, with blue hair down to her butt.
Held her child in one arm and her husband's
Callused, ogre-like hand in the other.
Cautiously, they explore, following the river
Of parafilm that once kept them in reality
Down a precipice towards the forest that awaits.
The forest to soon become a home for them,
The unwanted thoughts and ideas of the world,
Where they would rule and decide what goes.
They lived long enough to create the laws,
Fusing chaos and wonderous intrusive thought
Into magical creatures and crazy scenarios
Their son watched and admired, growing older,
And more fascinated with what the world refused.
Winged horses, horned rabbits, wide violet grasses,
Lilac-scaled lions with translucent skin and flowers
Made of greyscale wax with purple stems and thorns.
No law in the land went unchallenged or overturned
Except that the imaginary and the real must stay
Separate by all means, even during war and famine,
Even when those with imagination die and leave
Abandoning what they created into this microcosm.
The parents broke one rule, one fatal rule, and left
Their son in charge to never make the same mistake
And make no exception for any dreamer or wonderer
No matter what the situation was. Distraught and lost,
The despot ruled from his childhood home, the large
Marble castle overlooking the rainbow waterfall
The family once followed to create the world known
As Makk Bellif, a refuge for those imagined, created
From theory to imagination to arbitrary thoughts
That plague every human, young and old, in their sleep
And sit on their chests, suffocating them during the day.
Watching them, coming and going like waves of emotion,
The despot tries to ensure their safety and keep them
From disappearing forever like his parents.