How can you live your life without ever finding out the big what if? Perhaps I'm overly naive or hopeful, yet I wonder. Can you be content? Can you stand to spend your life with someone else? And leave your soulmate to someone else?

I’d rather be living paycheck to paycheck in a raggedy apartment if it meant I could dance in the rain with my soulmate, watch old movies and think ordering chinese food is a treat. I know with capitalism and the way the world works, it’s not that easy. It's not that clean-cut. But love isn’t either. Love is incredibly complicated.

We all burn brightly, but only for a glimpse in history. Wouldn't it be a shame if we never tried to find the person we were meant for? Never tried to make it work? I’d rather give my life to the what if, then spend all of my life wondering about it.

Challenge

To any gamers on Prose, describe your favorite video game in 100 words or less.

AmericanNomad in Gaming

35 reads

Red Dead ain’t Dead

With beautifully rendered scenes paying homage to every great western from The Great Train Robbery to Django Unchained, Red Dead Redemption's groundbreaking prequel gives gamers the ultimate wild west experience. The gruff but lovable protagonist and his ecclectic family of gangsters and degenerates are host to more laughs, gasps, and tears than any cast before or since. Match that with buttery-smooth gunfights, breathtaking landscapes, and more unsolved mysteries than the History Channel's nighttime programming, and you've got a recipe for an incredibly immersive experience that will stand the test of time as one of gaming's greatest narratives.

Challenge

thought

Alright, those of you who follow me know I have recently began just publishing quick thoughts. Now, I want to hear some of the things inside your heads. Tag me!! :)

Johnson

127 reads

Circle of Life

The circle of life will never implode; it recycles truth and sometimes magnifies it with illusion. We are carpenters by trade, building on the universe. The mind’s eye is the creator of what we see. Though we don’t always hear each other’s internal rivers, our worldwide tears make the oceans.

paintingskies in Haiku

81 reads

it’s always you, [name]

I count it all out.

How much of you can I squeeze

into a sentence?

Clarity

119 reads

Christmas Is Strange This Year

It's kind of weird. We didn't open presents on Christmas Day. We opened them on Christmas Eve and at the kitchen table instead of in the living room. Not that it's bad or anything, I understand. After everything that's happened, how can I expect my family to do what we've always done when one of us is missing?

I don't like it though. We've always been an unstoppable force, us siblings that is. I know we will never stop being that but it just feels wrong now that one is gone.

I try not to think about it because I'm tired of crying every time but I think I need to. Either write my thoughts down or do something with it. I try to distract myself.

Basically, this is just going to be a bunch of random things put down into words, things that I've been trying to keep back because I don't know how to express them.

I miss my brother. That's normal. I know. But I don't like missing him. It's like, he was never really here, but had stayed down South and worked for the holiday. For some reason, this still feels like an odd dream that I'm going to wake from, regretting everything. I kind of hope it is but I know all too well that it's not.

We have an ornament on our Christmas tree. It's a glass angel with gold fringed wings and an engraving that says in memory of my brother. It has his name but I don't really feel comfortable saying it. Maybe I'm scared to write it. I don't know.

Mom and Dad say we need to talk about him and not try to forget him but how can I do that? People ask me about something from my childhood and he always comes up because he was always there. He taught me how to ride my bike. He taught me how to play the piano. He taught me to have faith in myself and do what I love even when people may not support me or back me up. He helped me. He was the person I sat by when I rode on my first roller coaster. He held my hand on the first drop and then begged for me to stay conscious when I started to feel light headed as we were whipped this way and that. We ran through the line for that one stupid particular roaler coaster at the parks power hour just so we could ride it over and over again. At the end, I got to the point where I could ride the whole thing with my hands in the air. I never would have gotten on that thing if it hadn't had been for him.

I talked his ear off one night about my book Red Like Crimson. I kind of feel bad about never finishing it and I don't think I would ever be able to. But that's not the point. The point is, he listened when nobody else would. He talked with me about the things I loved even though he may not have been interested in or even talk about later.

We should talk about him.

I know that.

But I hate the way my throat feels when I start. I hate the way my voice cracks and my eyes start to sting. I can only fake being okay for so long.

I don't know. I'm kind of a mess right now but I know that it's okay. I'll get better soon and hopefully I'll be better when it's all done.

An old friend of the family told me at my brother's burial that it has to get worse before it can get better. It didn't really make sense at the time but it does now. I hope it doesn't get worse than this.