My acceptance speech (of sorts)
Thank you everyone in the Prose community!!!!!! When I downloaded this app back in September, I really didn't expect much. I had never allowed a single person to read my writing. I was too self conscious. My first post, I worked so hard on put it out there and didn't get a single like. Talk about devastating! I am not sure what compelled me to post another, but I did. I still remember how excited I was to receive my first follower and my first post that received over 5 likes. It's funny to think back when I made my first goal, which was get 50 followers. I am still amazed that I made it that far let alone being number 3 in the rankings. So thank you for all the love and support. You guys are truly inspirational! I love reading what you write. There is so much talent so please keep up the good work and stick it out. I know there are times it is hard - especially in the beginning. But hang in there. It will come eventually!
Just my luck.
He says he'll try monogamy if only what existed was that unicorn relationship.
Obviously, that doesn't exist. Unless of course you believe in unicorns.
As for me, I'm not sure.
Sure I wish on shooting stars and always look for that gold at the end of the rainbow or try to play with fairies in fields of flowers, but I've never seen a unicorn.
The unbearable aching gravity
All that pretty hair drifting through your fingers on the way to the ground. So light the sun blows right through, like caring was a dream. That heavy hand of hope pressing out color from adolescent afternoons, our hands slow, careless, quivering novices. All those noes before inhaling, stilling regret, then speaking. One more morning dive beneath covers before sailing down a river, smelling pomegranates, and knowing your stomach turns at their longing. The almost of an early Spring, one breath away from frost, the upheld pause, suspension that expects the fall. Inevitable, endless, earth; we no longer recall how to regain the moon.
Introducing: @Lsu11, Wordsmith and a voice “for those who may not have one”
Dearest readers and writers:
We're interrupting your regularly scheduled Prose to bring you this special literary announcement.
Lisa Sullivan, known here as @Lsu11, is an environmental scientist from the Detroit area in Michigan that has -as of this week- joined @unspecific and @JeffStewart as a resident Wordsmith.
We reached out to her today in hopes of learning more about her. What makes her tick? What is it about writing that keeps calling her back?
Here she is, ladies and gentlemen: the honorary Proser of the hour, Lisa "Ls11" Sullivan, with a few words of commencement for all of you...
P: Describe your current relationship with words.
L: "I write more technical reports as part of my job. However, I love creative writing. I try to give voices to those who may not have one.
"I tend to have an underlying message whether it is abuse or war or suppression. I truly believe that everyone should be treated equally and be granted the same opportunities in life and it breaks my heart to see otherwise. I guess I want people to know that they are not alone. That there are others out there that feel the same way and hopefully give them hope.
"I didn't have the easiest childhood that taught me to be empathic to others situations."
P: With more than 600 posts here, how often would you say you're engaged with Prose?
L: "I spend my time sporadically. Usually 30 minutes in the morning, quick check here and there during the day, and an hour or two at night.
"I love reading other people's things. There is so much talent and creativity in this community. I feel like it is such a supportive family. I love it.
"I feel honored and humbled to have made it to Wordsmith."
Once again, @Lsu11, congratulations on this remarkable achievement. We'd like to recognize you for your efforts here, including the subtle steps, large and small, that you're always taking to make the newcomers feel welcome.
It's writers like you that solidify the foundation of Prose. We couldn't be more proud!
The weight of things
What we wear upon our skin
comes down to how we
hold ourselves in light against
the grief, the bullshit
-the photos we carry within
are what we use
-hope against routine
the old poets are dying
today I read a poem about
Philip Levine by a writer
on Prose.
who goes
by the handle of
justinbarisich
and it took me back
to the days when the poets fed me
clean blood
before I became old and closed off
before I tired of the complaints
of the ages
and burned alive and dead so many
of my heroes because I began to sense
falsity in them
but the truth is and always was
what I know now
time only gives a sentence so many
ways
regardless of how we do it
I think back on this and I feel
somewhat bad for walking away
from them
when I should have realized that
I was one of them
even though I didn't want to be in
that club, I was born in it
not to spin this around on myself
but the weight of things for me
comes down to the word against
the page of the world, the old world
the new world, the world we will leave
and the world they will leave
it all burns in a circle
it always has
-a factory in Detroit harboring
steel poetry
-Bukowski's widow laughing to me that
their house will probably be a museum
-the sorrowful exit of Vonnegut against marble
-Hamsun's shamed picture next to Hitler
and all the deaths that carried the weight of beauty
into the ground to be buried and remembered only
by the readers they touched, and to be less and less
mentioned by those of us who have the reach to
remember them in poetry, in stories
all while containing and preserving our own
precious voices and self-respect
our own bullshit
that some other
fucker pushing 30 or 40
will start start detecting falsity in
and less of them than us today
will record them in poems
while those of us remaining
will constantly reach for the
resonance of Whitman
and other timeless entities
to ring through space after our deaths
but we will also forget this
during the course of things
and regardless of
whatever this is
we are only fed
by the hot blood
of artists.
