I was youngish. Ready to die. Impulsive. Sporadic. So filled with self-loathing. A deep, deep hatred for myself and anyone who dared to say anything nice about me. Look at me with anything close to kindness in your eyes and I would belch venom. People liked me anyway. Called me friend. Looked out for me. Wore out their knees saying prayers. I pushed and pushed until they went far enough away I didn’t feel threatened by their caring.

And then I met him. Dreadlocked and haunted, broken but pretending to fly. I knew he couldn’t hurt me. I let him in. Unprecedented access. Except my past, my sorrow, my trauma, I hid all of that. It was easy back then. I was so checked out from reality, so far from caring about myself and detached from my inner truths, any sense of grounding, that it hardly hurt at all.

I had to go away for a while. Couldn’t call him until the day I was released. He took a bus to where I was and we stayed in a hotel that night. Made a baby. Not on purpose. I wasn’t allowed to take my birth control where I was and I wasn’t smart enough to insist on protection.

Y’all I was so lost. I was so close to death every day, and I wanted it so badly. Not enough to take an action, but enough to not prevent harmful action and to put myself in danger at every opportunity. Then I figured out I was pregnant. It changed, well, everything.

For the first time in my life, I cared for myself. I cared about what I ate, how much I slept, how I felt. I cared about making amends and building bridges over the skeletons of the burnt. I mentally and physically transformed into a vessel worthy of bringing another human onto this earth. Thank god I had 9 months. That’s not some overnight shit.

This isn’t my birth story, so I’m going to skip all that and get to my first time seeing and holding this little man who took a self-absorbed, nihilistic asshole and turned her heart into more than a muscle that pumps blood. He is the reason I am alive today, he is my everything.

His name is Abacus. And he’s not talking to me right now. He’s 20 at the end of August. And every moment of every day I regret not doing a better job of letting him know that he is my everything, because it feels so lonely, to have everything and then watch it walk out of your life. It feels so empty, but he is my son. I am his mother. And nothing will ever change it. That’s forever.

I started with just some clothespins

As I gleefully began her totrture

Then clamps and needle to pierce her skin

As my game began an overture

This tedious selective punishment

Earned for ignoring her master

With each cry I reach a climax

With each new implement she begs faster

As each thrust of my manhood excites us

And the pain gives her to climax

I stop abruptly to tease her more

And add to this of which I tax her

The sheer excitement draws me to her closer

As the pain sweeps through her

She swiftly returns a kick to the groin

Knowing I enjoy the the torture

As we reach our joined climax

And the end of our first round

I flip her over roughly

And more aggressively go to town

Where this night will lead

We can only surrender

To greater depth of debauchery

As we fill another’s need

As this our last night may be

The fear immobilizing

The thrill galvanizing

The joy electrifying

The pain exquisite

The screams divine

There’s a pause in her breath

Just a moment she held it

And a firmness in her breast

As I lightly brush it

A crop meant for her ass

Now used elsewhere

As her back arches in ecstasy

And I use it to tap her nipple

Gently at first

Then slowly to glancing blows

As with each harder tap

Deeper within she goes

Giving me her all

Totally in trust and surrender

As she whispers the words I feared

And I realized I too did fall

I love you she whimpered

With her last breath explodes it all.

As I remove all of the sensory devices

Unbind her hands and feet

Admire her beauty and niceness

And fall by her side to weep

The releases are monumental

The hours take their toll

The emotions indescribable

As holding her I unfold

The submission to her now begins

As I lay impotent holding her tight

Her softness is now the win

As we relish the rest of our night.

What can't be seen is everything else

A panoply of a universe unconnected to me

A blind panorama I enter, imperceptive

Of that everything

And those everythings

Who/that await me

Nocturnal footsteps are mine

By the grace of lunar guidance

Shafting through the canopy

In staccato flashes syncopating with

Twig snaps and panicky creature-scurrying underfoot

Like me

Mine--not the only steps

Must move forward so

I can't put my back toward it

My soft-side, exposed for punches to come

Into the unknown smells and sounds

And fears

A chilled, shard-filled ambiance

Hangs, horizontal, posting right-angle triggers

With Damocles poised, smiling

To shred my quest

Before passing unmolested, unharmed,

And--breathing still?

A pan flute calls the vector to forward me

I raise each step to purchase tentative footway

And listen to each unconfirmed movement

Mine or, otherwise, caprine

A metered journey, carefully slow

And terrifying

So alone but, alone, not

A horned shadow mirrors each displacement

Of gravelly footfalls that announce

My tentative march toward the unknown

Entity who receives me expectantly

And angrily

Can vengeance come before I

Did-what-I-do to provoke it?

Can effect-precede-cause

And conclude-before-arrival?

Am I walking into a predetermination

Of peril, out of any rational order?

The pan flute sounds as the music of panic

Weaves fugued with the sounds

Unseen-but-heard, heard-but-unrecognized

My center of gravity is fluid, unanchored

I'm in tesseract territory, none of it really here

Or friendly

There is an everything that threatens

In the dark and dank and unseen

Yes, seeing navigates the world--

But dark's hearing invites what's to come

From a world unseen and flows everywhen

Toward me

Everything and everywhen and everyone

Call to me from their horrific singularity

On a number line's eddy currents

Where both sides of zero cancel but don't forgive

Here-to-there is preposterous, yet there-to-here

Is what is the coming-for-me

You cannot be a bulwark to everything

You can only join the cacophony and mayhem

To teach those who follow

That every conquers any

And each-of-us are any who must yield to the every

Until we forget, careless, and thus perish

Turn around!

Put your back to it

You cannot/will not see it, happening

Everything-all-at-once

Unfathomed in panic

And Lovecraftian dreads

Pull the covers over your head!

Brace your soft-side 'gainst terra firma

And suffer what onslaughts come

By wedding the unknown

And making your conjugal bed

On the down of uncertainty

Two ways a person can go.

One is to Heaven where the angels rest

and where the swans crow.

Where the beds made of cotton finer than silk

and where the rainbows end.

The roses and the marigolds

held close to the heart of a cupid.

For love that is held here

where nothing can interfere.

The second is to Hell where all the demons awake.

Where you can find not one but many

catastrophes that stay are revealed from the sand.

The red walls of fire that cannot seem to end.

If you've learnt how to read hell is not for you

because only robbers and people like you-know-who

set their first and last step in hell.

That's my everything, all I know

and all I dare to think.

All that triggers my mind

and all I've got to cry about is

Heaven or Hell.

Hello, Writers and Dear Readers.

A quick nod to one of our new talents, whose post is featured in our Exclusive Spotlight showing on the channel. Tune in, and give this writer a couple of minutes of yourself and your ear on this Sunday's high noon, or afternoon, or whatever it is, wherever you are. The link sits just below the period that ends this sentence.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2g1ylrcC7Aw

And.

As always.

-Thank you for being here.

-The Prose. team

I tiptoe the line between compliance and rebellion daily.

I will walk the tightrope and then ever so delicately allow one of my demons to drag my foot through chaos.

Brief. But impactful.

Compliance is critical.

But only on my terms.

And.

Rebellion is a necessity to keep the lambs on their toes.

For without rebellion, there would never be a need for compliance.

And without compliance there would be anarchy.

I have no desire to overthrow anyone.

I just like to periodically, remind them that I’m still here.

With his usual nonchalant stride, Peter shuffles down the front steps in his wife’s fancy gold slippers. His robe flowing swiftly behind. Their private drive is lined with perfectly manicured red and yellow rose bushes, in-bloom, and as flamboyant as he is. That usual pompous smile dons his face as he prepares to grab his beloved Forest Hills Bulletin, which I watched Jimmy from Cedar Street, deliver at 5:30 this morning. It is the same fake smile that I can't stand, while he bends over like an old man with a herniated disk. He winces in pain as he visibly struggles, which is puzzling, as he is only forty-five, an active runner, and health nut. I tap my foot rapidly with impatience for what seems to be eternity until he finally aligns himself upright. He stretches his hips forward, and arches his back to re-calibrate, then takes in one long inhale of the dry spring air and again smiles from ear to ear; But as I sit here eating my dry toast, with no butter, all I can think is, just hold the happy thought Peter, because I know what you did.

I could barely hold back my tears as I cocked the hammer back on my gun. My son, Peter, sat in front of me. He was looking out at the ocean, watching the waves crash over the sand from the log he sat on. The sky was a beautiful mix of golds and peaches and oranges - a perfect sunset. A perfect memory.

He hummed to himself; some theme song from a show that he liked. He’d been watching a lot of shows lately. Ever since the diagnosis, I’d given him unfettered access to the television, even put one in his room when he couldn’t walk so easily anymore. The doctors had told me that would happen. They said that movement would become difficult and painful. And it did. Eventually I had to carry him to and from the bathroom and feed him in bed because any journey would bring him to tears.

He continued to hum as I brought the gun level with the back of his head. He’d always wanted to go to the beach, begging me every summer. But I’d never made it much of a priority, thinking we’d always have next year. But when the doctors told me how quickly he would deteriorate, I realized that I was out of time. There wasn’t going to be a next year, they said. So even though it was fall, I booked us a trip right away.

Hmmhmmhmm. Hmmhmmhmm. Hmmhmmhmm.

I began to apply pressure to the trigger, my finger unable to pull it in one swift motion.

“Daddy?”

I hesitated. “Yes Peter?”

“Thanks for taking me to the beach.”

Tears welled in the corner of my eyes. “No problem Kiddo.”

It became even harder to squeeze the trigger. Memories of our life before his illness raced through my mind. The gun shook in my hand as I began to lose my resolve.

“I love you, Daddy.”

The tears finally spilled out onto my cheeks, running down my face like salty rivers.

“I love you too, buddy. Just hold that happy thought, Peter…”

With that, I managed to apply the last of the pressure necessary to end his pain for good.

I can't begin to tell you,

How good these feel to write,

To finally express my anger,

And let out all of my fight.

I am not one for confrontation,

That's why my parents don't know,

But I think that's okay,

Because out of my anger I will grow.

I'll learn to deal with my past,

Past that I cannot change,

And then I'll move on,

Forgive,

But not forget,

Because I will never be the same,

Without my pain.

I'll turn into a woman,

Eventually,

Start a family of my own,

And learn to set my soul free.

I'll meet someone new,

Someone charming and sweet,

Someone who I like so much,

He'll sweep me off my feet.

I need to let go of this anger,

But I'm not ready to yet,

Because I know when I will,

It will not be pretty.

The time will come,

Too soon,

I'll say,

But eventually,

They'll know,

One day.