I let the soot stain my fingertips ashen grey, pinching the corner of a splintered log as I toss it further into the metal pit.

I imagine how tired the flames must be. Most refer to a fire as raging, as angry as a hellhound biting at the confines we try haplessly to keep it within.

But would a fire not burn so bright, not burn so fiercely that it wishes to rest? Because as the flames turns to ash, the wood burnt something terrible there squats it's assailant, blowing on its ruin and trying to catch carcass to cardboard.

I try to clean up its disarray with my own, and it feels as though helping a comrade to its feet around the shrapnel of stainless steel.

I tend to this fire as though its a tangible peace of me, tend it solely until it shows sign of exhaustion, and smile when it lets out a relieved sigh as I douse it before bed. Watching it twirl and dance above the sky top of the tent, feeling just the bit lighter for it all.

I remember the light in her eyes the way the sun hit them in the morning. They were an oak forest and my soul seemed to walk an eternal bliss looking into them.

She told me her name was Evelyn. Many men knew her by many names. Many nights they’d fight one another just to lay beside her. I’ve had my ass whooped a few times.

She had a high lonesome glare in her face before walking a man to her room, like the sound of railroad whistle, or the shine of a moon and sleepless wolves far off.

There were nights when her face was bruised, she had cuts on her hands and her neck. Old man Crews hollering at her for this or that. Yanking her every which way.

I asked her before why she does it. She said it’s better than the Reservation.

We’d talk all night about dying and becoming stars, the fire in our souls, the breath of peace. All that, like after a long night there will be a greatorning forever. I never spoke with anybody about such things.

I worked all week for the railroad, camping out, scraps for food, just to spend one night with her at the end of each month.

Her touch was like being born anew.

The last time I went into New West she was not there.

They found her in her room, dead. Nobody said what had happened.

Only a few were at her burial. The preacher read some verses, asked the almighty for forgiveness, then the groundskeepers stumbled a bit and laid her down. Packed the dirt down. The preacher tried singing. I never heard the song birds so clear as I did that day leaving the cemetery.

I still think about her, most days, working in the heat, thinking about seeing her again in some other place.

I can see her smiling in the mornings, sunlight seeping through the windows. Her holy face.

Ok, ok, these phrases didn't draw the level of inspiration I thought they might, but hey, that's why it's called a challenge! What I really love about these challenges is that you never know who's going to be inspired by the entries, and it's awesome to see the responses start to come rolling in. For this, I'm going to give the next challenge a bit more time.

Let's get right to it. @Huckleberry_Hoo took this challenge by the horns and came out almost completely unscathed. I mean, who edits out one of the challenge parameters? Still, the genius was there, and that's what really counts. Seriously, if you haven't read it, you definitely should--it's so worth it! HH takes the win for the initial entry part of the challenge. However, there were some really neat stories which deserve mention.

You just never know when you're going to get the old FUJIMO! @DrSemicolon brought it to the table and slammed it down! Nice work! @Fabulam had a brilliantly creative entry with Battle of Mind and Soul. I really hoped @LilMisWordSmith would submit a response, but it was just too late. Fortunately, she did post a response in This Sweet, Handsome Devil's Last Chance, which is truly an inspired piece following Thunderstruck from @Embc -- a throwback for us old farts who still pine for those glory days. @ElisePotato -- I so enjoy this author! Burn Away the Tears. I would have responded to this one, myself, if I hadn't been so buried last week. Check this out: @DanPhantom123 submitted an entry without actually submitting it into the challenge, so you'll have to do a quick search for it. "Loving. Is a Rare Kind of Lifeline" is the title. It's a read, my friends, but the pace is so quick, you'll be through it and reading it again in ten minutes, easy.

Secondly, along with LilMisWordSmith, there were some great responses inspired, which is exactly the kind of chain reaction I hope to see. @Fabulam had a fabulous response to @Ola_8 -- if you haven't seen this pair, I highly recommend that as well. @Lou1913 threw down a nice response to @Akitoyu 's Reaching Wings. Akito, may I add, is a badass.

The big winner of the response part of the challenge, as I'm sure you'll agree, is @Mavia with her response to HH's heart-wrenching, tragic story of young love revisited, where the story delivers an unexpected and empowering twist. Please, if you haven't read this tandem tale, do so now. You will not regret it!

So congrats to the winners, and thank you everyone for another showcase of creativity! I continue to learn lessons as the entries come in, and I hope I've done my part in coming up with a more inspirational set of phrases for the next: Challenge of Inspiration III, which is linked below.

https://www.theprose.com/challenge/14124

I'm sitting on my roof

Watching

Thousands of dollars

Go up in flame

Because

Destruction is just

Patriotism

If it looks pretty enough.

Been some time since I've posted on my own profile and not as Prose., but I wanted to post something from here and tag some writers, because I want to start getting back to my own shit. I need to write more, or just plain out start writing again. Prose. is a labor of love, so that's great, but no matter what, I need to write. Realized today I haven't even posted to my own channel in ages, and it worked out, because I didn't want to post my work on The Prose. Channel, because I like to keep that for the writers aside from me, and my voice and big, fat face on the channel is enough from me, without reading my own work, too. Holy fuck, I couldn't even watch that...

Been on this gnarly but satisfying carnivore diet the last couple of months or just less, and yesterday was an all-Hell-breaks-loose day. Beer, whiskey, bread, name it... paying the fiddler now. I'm sure he's thrilled. He's an asshole.

As myself, I want to thank you for being on Prose., and for being so generous with the work you give to it. Every day I read something great on here. So much talent in one place, and I think back to when it was just an idea stemming from another hangover, in the heat of a Texas afternoon, where I happened to find myself in that particular moment in time. Looking at Prose. now, it's very humbling, and I am grateful to you.

Alright, enough mushy feelings and shit. Here's a link to my own channel and some poems from here, but also appearing in a book of mine, set to release in the near future.

Thanks again.

-Jeff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKw-vodNOMU

I don't know how you did it but you found me. And I haven't been the same since.

I am nothing but the traces of a long-forgotten deity; the whispers of a religion lost to bloodshed and time. I know not where I am from or who I once took care of. But somehow, you found me. You gave me name and shape, turned me to more than a whisper in the trees.

Because of you, I am.

You are the reason I am whole.

So how could I not love you? And how could it not hurt me even more that this will not last, young one?

I had forgotten, for too long, how wonderful it was to be seen. And then you gazed into the depths of me with your dark eyes and made me a home for your prayers, your praises, your dearest sorrows. I have kept them. Labelled, memorised down to the very colour of the shoes you wore, placed carefully with the utmost reverence beside my heart.

But this will never last.

You will die, my saviour.

And I will fade away along with you.

But while we live, you and I, promise me this. That you will never leave me. That you will never stop gazing out into the aether for me with those lost, pretty eyes. I may be your deity but beneath, all I am is your humbled servant. You have my utmost devotion - I am tied to you; mind body and soul. There is no me without your existence.

And somewhere along the line, young one, it pains me to think that perhaps I may worship you just as much as you do me.

It is not supposed to be this way. Is it? I do not know the way of the gods of this age or any. I have always been on my own. I have been non-existent for as long as I can remember. You breathed life to me. You returned me here. I live for you. I am for your sake, alone.

Forgive me if this is not the way your gods treat their charges. You are the first person I've cared for in a long time and the devotion I have for you... It makes me feel like I am your child, your mother and father, your lover, sibling and friend.

Yet, I believe you are deserving of better than a guardian with no sense of self. I suppose this is why you may have chosen me. I cannot say for certain. But you did. Me of all the faiths in the world. You put your trust in me. You give me everything in you, hoping for the barest of kindness in return.

You are mine, then.

And I am yours, my little, mortal divinity.

For as long as you will have me. For as long as you may last.

Have you ever had those moments of pure bookdrenaline? You know…the times where you aren‘t simply a “writer” but rather the literary vessel forged from the fire of creativity and as such a marvel. It is your soul purpose to deliver the stories swelling inside you to the world and there is nothing and no one who can stop you. Then…nothing….

Your cerebral planes have become a ghost town of thoughts. All the characters talking over each other, desperate to be heard hours before, have suddenly vanished.

Whenever this happens I acknowledge that I am simply not ready to hear and accept the next part of their story. I feel like I am, what author doesn’t? However, it is their story after-all.

Not every writer crafts like this, but I have always felt as though these stories are real and have been lost in the shuffle of the progression of the world. Only those with a heart and mind sensitive enough to listen can put them to paper.

I step away. I may even go through previous scenes in the story and find clues there. But more often than not, my characters will voice their story when I‘m in the snack aisle at the store, nowhere near my computer. *insert face palm emoji here.*

As they say, “inspiration can strike anywhere,” but what “they” didn’t say was the inconvenience that ”anywhere” may entail.

My process depends on the story I am working on, however one thing I recommend for all writers is don‘t let the outside noise filled with doubt and intimidation influence the voices of your story.

Never lose the awe and wonder this craft provides, not everyone can and not everyone wants to write. You got this!

The days seem long, the years go fast

ephemeral, it cannot last

life, love, the memories you share

dream of forever if you dare;

blink and the present becomes past

the days seem long, the years go fast

the path behind a vivid guide

death lies ahead, you cannot hide;

you gave your life for this moment

was it worth it? Do you own it?

the days seem long, the years go fast

the echos of yesteryear are vast;

do you rejoice in existence?

Meet time's passage with resistence?

Enjoy it all! The die is cast!

the days seem long, the years go fast.

There's a girl who would dream of sitting on a cloud

So she could look down and watch the world pass by.

Because the voices around her were deafeningly loud

And it would be quiet alone in the sky.

And the girl got her wish and looked down at the earth,

And in the absence of sound, her head began to pound

Without any tethers, she questioned her worth.

So she screamed just to hear another sound.

And her cry became the thunder,

And her tears fell down as rain,

And they threatened to pull her under

Unless she'd live again.

And so she had no choice but to let herself fall,

Back to the noise and work and pain

Because alone in her storm with no one to call,

She could only hope to get lost in the rain.

I can see her golden hair

The fire in her amber eyes

Hidden ’hind the spit-clean windows

Of your father’s ’57 Chevy

I don’t got no balls of steel

And my blurry vision

Leaves but dried-up tears

Yet I long to say my vows with her

Before the pillars of Heaven

The sight of her burns like fire and ice

Melts me into a puddle of sweat

Drowns me in my faded blue jeans

Till’ there’s nothing left but my soul to see

The rolling thunder beckons me forth

Tellin’ me it’s the devil’s last chance

I slide out from my hiding place

And run like a bat out of Hell

Torn leather jacket flapping like wings

Wings that chase after her

Wings that will take her from you