That is why I create:

to ameliorate

the shade of being alone.

So that when chill rolls down my spine,

I don't feel cold,

I hear notes.

Such that every drop of rain,

and every snowflake

which falls upon my face,

is not felt alone.

But with the shadow of metaphor,

warm to my bones.

Because if shadows and shadows only

are to be

what accompany me;

then I would rather relinquish,

rather tell myself:

they are liberating.

But this is just one reason of many

just one symptom of a plenty.

That I have felt since childhood's hour

and thereafter knelt

in reverence of its power.

It is a wound which tears us apart

yet binds us all.

Singularly separated,

irrevocably connected.

And that is why

while you hold the hand of another

I grasp pen and feather.

When you taste blood

from love bites,

I wash off ink

stains from last night.

But it's no tragedy,

not a sad, theatrical ending.

Some play their characters,

while others are their own.

Some go from heart to heart to heart,

while I make mine my own home.

When I loved you two years ago, it was a shock  to my heart,

like it been failing and the doctors needed to start it.

It threw me against the wall (no anesthesia)

It made me trip and fall (synesthesia)

Not to your arms, but to the ground.

Hate me, bait me.

I have you.

It hit me hard (you loved her)

I played my card (and shoved her)

and you still weren't mine.

(I walked away, burned and torn,  dead electricity settling inside my bones)

But now, strange as it seems, I find myself,

In a very  different almost-love.

I don't fix every word

just so you'll like it. 

I don't wait in hallways

just to see you.

I don't barely touch you

just to feel lightening.

We're comfortable, I'm comfortable,

(and we don't see her anymore)

I call you stupid,

You call me loud,

And we laugh at jokes that would never be funny,

if we weren't saying them.

I'm not falling in love,

I'm wading into it.

(Where we were and where we are now.

Miles downstream of what happened,

two years ago.)

I don't think many know the true meaning of empathy. Empathy is more than understanding how someone feels. It's feeling and comprehension. To understand, you kill off hatred. It's impossible to hate or be biased when you comprehend the fact that everyone has their own life, their own shoes, and therefore their own story. You want to hate, you want to be biased, and rage when people upset you, but you can't hate. Because you don't know what those people are going through, what they've been through, and how they were brought up and taught. When someone upsets you, you want to be angry and upset, because they ignored you or treated you wrongly, but you can't be angry. You think of what they're going through and now you can't blame them. It's not their fault how some things come about. It's no ones fault on how they're raised and how some things influence them. We're influenced from the second we're born. No newborn has the power to have their own mind when outside forces weigh so heavily on them.

Since you understand this all you can do is rage, but rage without being hypocritical of your own comprehension. Which is absolutely maddening, because part of the human function is to react to situations with emotion. And if you were to react irrationally or illogically you'd become even more frustrated, with yourself, and curse yourself for your own ability to comprehend the human mind and life in general. Sounds complex, doesn't it? And then there're those who you can feel deep, unspoken emotion. Tears threaten to spill over when a woman talks about her sister having cancer. She isn't even crying, so you have to control your own emotions. The kicker, is you've never met her before. But you could feel.

I feel like this daily. I see ignorant, rude, childish and/or mean people almost daily. I see criminals on the news, and all I feel is pity. I can't get mad at them, can't blame them, can't even silently curse at them. Because I don't know how their week/days been, I don't know the entirety of their story, or an inkling of it. I can't judge and I can't get mad. Not knowing their lives, their perception, struggles, and influences prevents me from giving a fair judgement, so I give none. I only wish someone would actually help them, instead of shun and condemn them. I'm not intelligent when it comes to science and math, and I'm not a renowned author or doctor or lawyer, but I can honestly say I understand something most, if not all of them, don't. It's what I believe in and what I try to live by.

 I'm both blessed and cursed, but proud either way.

Not being able to decide between two, I break the rules and offer both betrayal haikus:

we thought winter gone

lakes were on our agenda

summer is postponed

fierce winter's returned

umbrellas thankfully have

multiple uses

Greetings Prosers! It’s Tuesday again, so that means you get to meet another member of the Prose team. So welcome to this week's Team Tuesday, where we're in the UK's leafy brussell sprout county of Bedfordshire to speak to the dark and wordy: yet well mannered chap who many of you would have read or avoided like the plague: @PaulDChambers

P: How did you get involved with Prose?

PDC: I first heard of Prose through my friend and Prose Partner, Anna Boswell. It had quite a different feel to it then, a different look. The community spirit wasn’t how it is now, and it had a lot fewer features; but I still instantly loved it. Meanwhile, I met Sammie separately on Twitter, without even knowing she was part of Prose. She had just read my book, liked my style, and at that time I happened to be in the market for work. In fact, I’d just accepted another job that paid very well sorting out and running the social media marketing of two companies. Then Sammie and I got talking, a lot, and she offered me this exciting position. I ended up turning down the other job for this one and haven’t looked back since.

P: Why Prose?

PDC: It’s a perfect way to hone your style, your talent. You get inspired by others and receive instant intelligent feedback. If you’re not in the mood to write, it’s just a massive free library of exceptionally good writing. The question shouldn’t be ‘Why Prose?’…it should be ‘Why NOT Prose’?

P: What is your role?

PDC: It’s officially Marketing Executive and has grown substantially since I joined. Firstly, I curate, write copy for, schedule and monitor Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Google+, LinkedIn and Instagram over 7 days a week. Any direct messages, retweets and interaction needs to be dealt with 365 days a year, too. I share the customer services side of things, which also includes all of the emails, direct messages and technical queries from Prosers. Any interaction in theprose.com (which is a huge amount of tags, comments, shares, messages and technical queries) I share with Sammie, as well as posting content in there on a regular basis such as the Friday Feature and snippets of upcoming blog pieces.

I also research and write the content for the blog site or format any that is occasionally written by others and post it via wordpress. This involves proofing, curating media and embedding it to make it look all lovely, pretty and enticing. Any content in the blog I then have to link to and schedule the social media for at specific times of the day over different time zones across the week then rescheduled social media that has performed well.

For the above I approach, liaise with and interview different wordy types, read books to review for the BBYD feature, or watch films to compare to books I also have to read for the splice feature. Pitch decks, research, visits to Prison for the Letters from Prison Portal, attending literary events, proofing and editing entire books, marketing campaigns and any other marketing also are added to a huge and organic to-do list.

Finally, after all of these things I do for at least 6 days of most weeks, I try to get on to theprose.com to write and interact with Prosers as myself, the original guy that joined to do just that. Write.

P: What are your hobbies and passions?

PDC: Aside from the writing and reading, which I’ve had a passion for since I was a stuttering child; I spend what little free time I get cooking, watching films and unscheduled TV. Horror, or dark and gloomy drama always win there, and only watched as a box set. Music is CONSTANTLY playing around me too; from the moment I’m awake. All types, pretty much – classical and blues when I need to be in the calm zone up to death metal for busy days. Having moved to the country three years ago, I’ve now swapped a party lifestyle for walks in the countryside and even bloody bird watching.

In contrast to that newly calm side of me, I also get cheap thrills throwing myself out of planes, off buildings and cranes as well as driving at ridiculous speeds. Oh, and I try to go to my Mum’s little holiday house in Spain as often as possible, which has prompted me to learn Spanish for the last year or so.

P: What is your favorite literary genre and why?

PDC: The darker the better and always has been. I've been fascinated with the dark side since I was a little boy. If I had to only ever read one genre, it would be horror. I try to step outside of that as much as possible though, purely to grow in literary terms. That’s the great thing about the BBYD feature. It’s me that is gradually reading all of the books that people recommend above all others, and they span a multitude of genres; which in turn stretches my comfort parameters.

P: What is the world of indie books like?

PDC: For me, it was and remains a double edged sword. When I released my book ‘Manners Cost Everything’, I had visions of it being my career forever. Critically, I’ve had resounding success with it, but not financially, and I’ve made my peace with that. I started a bit too late, and I think anyone that can make a career of it is very lucky or must have been in at the early stages before saturation happened and Amazon made it tough to make any decent cash other than for them.

The flipside to it is that through getting into the indie books world, I continued and still continue to hone my craft and meet fantastic people along this path I tread, as well as having cool opportunities come my way. Of course, the path led to where I am now, which is working for Prose. That’s pretty fucking cool.

P: In a perfect world, what will your life look like five years from now?

PDC: In five years I will be working for the world leading, multimedia reading and writing community called Prose, that has millions of users and has changed the face of all things wordy forever. The team will be much bigger, so that the tasks currently taking up huge chunks of my time are performed by others, allowing me to enjoy Prose and Prosers; as well as writing my books a lot more – which incidentally by that time have begun making me a shit ton of money!

P: Do you have a favorite author, challenge, post, and/or portal on Prose?

PDC: There are too many fanfuckingtastic authors on Prose to choose. Portals-wise, it’s a toss-up between Horror & Thriller and Fiction for reading, and I seem to gravitate most to Poetry & Free Verse when I write. It sounds a bit wanky, but a challenge I enjoyed hugely was one that I myself set to simply shock me. All of those entries were dark and spectacular – right up my grim alley. There’s some heavyweight talent writing on prose and to single anyone out would be remiss of me.

P: What is one thing about Prose you’d like to share with its community?

PDC: It touches me daily and fills my heart with pride when I see such a strong, supportive, caring and hugely talented bunch of people coming together with one common goal: to enjoy reading, writing and honing great things built from words. Some of the messages we receive about how much the community and outlet has helped people in very dark times literally brings tears to my eyes. Long may it continue. We are a small team and love what we do, and that’s because of Prose and the Prosers.

P: Imagine you are in the process of writing a book; what is the title, and brief synopsis?

PDC: I don’t need to imagine, I am! It’s the second part of my trilogy. Book one, Manners Cost Everything spanned the years 1996 to 2001. Book two is Manners Maketh Man and features Robbie from book one, murdering bad mannered people over another few years; but doesn’t know that he’s doing it.

His nemesis, Lentus, continues on his quest of hunting down and bringing the mysterious killer to justice; whilst being haunted by the ’ghost' of his murdered sister. The paths of the characters intertwine throughout London and beyond, sometimes knowingly, and sometimes not.

This second Manners book rampages its visceral course through the history, music, culture, sexual exploits and technological advances of the years 2001 to 2010. Written in shockingly graphic detail, with dark humour and an adult erotic tinge; it’s for the open minded lovers of horror fiction, crime fiction and thrillers.

P: What’s it like working with an international team?

PDC: Awesome and interesting. The time differences seem to never really click with them. When they’re getting up we’re probably just finishing a long day. Their spelling sucks as well, with bastardised versions of our beautiful language here, there and everywhere! Haha!

The distance also means that without a shared workspace or working day, they never see how hard the UK team constantly works. But it’s all pretty awesome, as I have forever been an Americaphile having lived there vicariously through books and films since I was old enough to watch and read. They are a bloody lovely bunch and I’m proud to work with them.

P: Any closing thoughts?

PDC: Prose is a unique and a beautiful thing; and I’m chuffed as little appleseeds to be part of it. Also, please follow me on here and on Twitter @MannerCost - I love you guys!

Ugh I can't sleep

If I go to sleep now I will have 7 hours and 14 minutes

I have to pee

What would happen if my house caught on fire right now?

DID I FINISH MY HOMEWORK?

Yeah I did...I think

Oh god what if I didn't?

My teacher will hate me forever

I will get an F in that class!

I should go check

But I'm all warm and cozy

I have to pee

What would happen if I just stopped going outside?

Would I die?

Nah no one needs the sun, right

Oh wait yeah vitamin D

I think I need a little Vitamin "D" myself haha

I have no life

I need to pee

Why am I here?

Like I didn't ask to be born or anything

I didn't ask for responsibilities

The only reason I'm here is because my parents got horny one night

Ewww don't think of that oh god stop

NEW TOPIC PLEASE

I wonder if humans are the aliens and animals are the native race on earth?

And we just sort of took over

I should be a scientist

Jordan Howe: Alien Scientist

Sounds pretty cool to me

I should contact NASA

I'd be the top alien scientist in the world

Maybe the only alien scientist...

Naw that's a lonely life no man is gonna want an alien scientist as a wife

I REALLY NEED TO PEE

but I'm so comfy....

Fire hoses

Water bottles

Fountains

SWIMMING POOLS

THE ATLANTIC OCEAN!!

Okay fine bladder I will get up

*flush*

Ah finally...now I can sleep

It's too hot

I will go turn on the fan

Ugh now it's too cold

Let's get another blanket

Ahhh that's nice

What time is it?

MIDNIGHT?

I have school tomorrow!

I need to wake up early!

Okay Jordan you can do this just concentrate

Go to sleep, go to sleep, go to sleep little-

What if teletubbies were real and that's where TV came from?

Stop it brain I'm trying to sleep!

One sheep

Two sheep

Three sheep

Four

Why didn't I shut my stupid door!!

Hey that was a good rhyme

I'm a poet and I didn't know it

Yeah

I'm cool

Yeah

Go tell tell the cool kids that they've got a poet

Me

It's cool to be a poet right?

Okay I seriously need to get to sleep

Close your eyes

Yeah that's nice

Why do I need to pee again

*flush*

Finally now I can sleep

Go to sleep

Go to sleep

Go to sleep little Jordan

Ugh I can't sleep!

Dead. Used to be alive. Really loved birds. Led many through the waters. Married late, never regretted. Two daughters, sweet as peaches. Twelve surgeries, five books, prize winning jalapeños. Great cheesecake. Not bad soup. Just missed walking in 50 states—damn you, Utah! Turned abandoned houses into art.