I can't title this as a letter, as a "Dear ____", as a painful series of sentences designed to make me reflect and feel pain. My children are cells that have not yet divided into fetuses, into little versions of myself, into generational trauma and sticky fingers that reach for an absentee mother.

I suppose this not-letter has to be abstract, because that's what my children are to me, what my relationships with my mother is - a once and future cloud that erupts into thunder when I'm asked, "Do you want children?"

There is nothing quite like dreams to keep me going, nothing quite like hope to inspire a future with a son or daughter.

Life is hard. It's a series of rejections, sickness, and bills to pay. It is a series of rock-bottoms, or maybe that's just what I've experienced.

Can I let my failures as a human being already cloud my perception of motherhood? Will my children suffer for having me as a mother, for watching me reach for something other than their love when I'm down and out, aching for a substance to heal me when family is right in front of me?

I would want more for my children. I want them to be happy, to experience life to the fullest. To hit rock bottom, and instead of bottoming out, to see it like the seasons. A spring of blossoms, rain that creates new life but does not wash away our lessons learned. A summer that does not scorch old terrain and make us want to obliterate pain, but makes generational trauma come out behind shadows; the sepia light reflecting off only what is there to be physically seen, and not just psychically felt.

I want more. I know there is life beyond pain, and I would want that for anyone, whether or not they share my DNA.

I am going to end this not-letter by saying that I am in love with life, but not in the same way a mother loves her child - in a fragmented way, in an autumn of sorrow, in a winter that lightly coats everything in snow and melts away to uncover the peace I so desperately crave for myself.

Hello, Writers and Dear Readers.

On the channel today, we congratulate last week's winner, and officially announce the new Challenge of the Week, and let the new blood know who's who in the admin zoo.

Here's the video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oA03jVqp9Hc

And here's the link to CotW CCXXIII.

https://theprose.com/challenge/13980

And.

As always...

-Thank you for being here.

-The Prose. team

Hello, Writers and Dear Readers.

Today, we oficially kick off the Post of the Week, and give you details about the Challenges. Happy to say we're reigniting the Challenge of the Week, and each one is a big, fat 25 bucks to the winner. But, onto the new video: On the channel, we feature a beautiful human creature (rhyme level-10-boom!) with a wolfe in the username. Tell you what right now, she's also a beautiful reader. Tune in to the link below to hear the words of this unique talent.

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

And.

As always.

Thank you for being here.

-The Prose. team

The tectonic plates of my identity

Are shifting constantly.

One foot in one culture

And one in another. The steadiness

Of my stance depends

On fault lines;

If the ground beneath moves too much,

How do I decide where I land

My feet?

Where do I fit within the landscape

Of faces, when I am two

Places, overlapping?

A patchwork childhood - jammy dodgers

Butting up against bee hoon, dried pork floss

And corned beef - provides stepping

Stones, anchors to both the worlds

I move within.

And yet; I don't belong

fully here nor there.

A fact apparent in the frequent

Refrain of: where are you from?

More often than not, the answer

Is unsatisfactory, leading

To: where are you really from?

I can parse it. I know the real meaning:

"You look foreign.

Explain."

Carefully, gently

proceed with loving intention

Revel, pause, understand and treasure

Every expression never mentioned.

Diligently now, do not hesitate

Any pause will cause alarm.

Confidently, quickly, assure me, silently

One moment creates a world of calm.

Be still at first, don’t turn me away

Movement suggests disdain.

Acknowledgement isn’t necessary, acceptance is,

You use your words in vain.

On the brightest days, through every thunderous rain,

There is nothing I value as much.

The quiet sincerity and attentive care,

That shines through the love language of touch.

In a country where marriage

is a commodity being sold,

like exported goods

and appraised gold.

When all of the men you have ever bared yourself to have succumbed to pawning feelings.

In exchange of convenience and familial approval.

The sadness hangs like unpulled church bells. The desert heat seemed unfelt by your clammy skin.

(The leaves outside the window rustled as if whispering back your unrealised dreams.)

You sighed and went on saying

between the distance of you and him,

in the silence and detachment.

you found your ticket back to your comfort place in prescribed pills.

For a moment, I am convinced

that this world was designed to favor Joseph and not Mary.

I wanted to blanket you

from this scythe wind

to shield your purple heart

to armor you from this men-molded mortar

to tell you to never fit

our rebellious bones

into the norms of patriarchs.

(You reached out for the rays of the sun like they were raindrops falling on your palms.)

if I tell you, the fortress

of our fathers has fallen,

will you laugh again, love?

Oh, please!

Laugh.

Let these men wonder

about the joy of being a woman —

that even if they try

and make us cry

our once hushed lips would ne——ver shape their names.

You stayed with me over the years I grew,

I wish you would love who I’m becoming.

Since I’m not changing how you want me to,

I’m begging you to just please stop hating.

When I grow older and start my career,

Approve of what I am going to be.

Don’t try to change my mind, nothing to fear.

Successful I will be and make you see,

That I can choose a path all by myself.

Just love and care until I fade away.

Don’t throw me out or leave me on the shelf.

I will work hard till my hairs turn gray.

My destiny already set in stone,

For it I’ll strive until I’m skin and bone.

Hello Writers and Dear Readers.

In today's vid, we look at two beautiful styles of writing. We'll tag them along with the crew in the crew in the comments. The link is right below this sentence.

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

And.

As always.

Thank you for being here.

-The Prose. team.

It's not enough. I am - what? For some reason I think of Virginia Woolf, who had a room of her own, and also stones in her pockets. Do we die for art, or does art die with us?

I'm not actually that retrospective. I'm just a girl. An administrative assistant who writes poems under her desk on post-it notes, hoping to god today isn't the day someone empties the trash and finds out about my existential crisis.

I have forgiven my enemies. My mother is sincere now, and I am fond of her absolute disdain for everyone. When I was a child, she would throw things and chase me and call me unspeakable names, and I learned to internalize it as one does. Therefore, I am convinced everyone hates me. But her vocabulary is utterly fantastic and I laugh heartily at her mockery of others, her ability to laugh at what is utterly ridiculous.

I am a psycho. I count out the number of times I read sentences because I am anxious I will get the meaning of them wrong. I am convinced cameras are watching my every move at work. When I write those aforementioned poems under my desk, I make sure the person reading them will be entertained, so there's always some comedy to my madness. I daydream about writing topics. I see an email come in and do not forward it because won't the sender know? They won't. That's the point.

In a panic, I text people back whom I haven't responded to in days because I was writing and submitting to contests. I refresh my personal email twice a minute. I apply to new jobs, eager and desperate to not have an old crow of an office administrator tell me to file the paperwork for a third time in one day. I'm done. And I am over it.

In 2018, I spent New Years Day at McLean, a mental hospital where Sylvia Plath and other illustrious poets slept and ate while overly medicated. I saw the ball drop at midnight in the sterile hospital rec room and heard a song sung, one I hated at the time but now relish. It reminds me of sickness and being utterly out of control. Nostalgia, if you will. And something for the post-it notes.

I don't reminisce often, I am far too tired and still hopelessly medicated into sedation. But one thing I know for sure is: I'm still figuring out who this body is. I breathe. But do I think? For myself, about anyone else at all?

It is hard being mentally ill, harder to fight it, easiest to write about it.