you are born in blood

and cry for something unnamed

yearning for soft love

your emotions are

too big for your body, and

you want to catch up

but young adulthood

brings loneliness in u-hauls

and loved ones fading

is this life? just change

and love and loss and feeling

so much you might die?

and then death arrives

so gently, and carries you

back to your old room

I listened in peace,

To muffled whispers of dreams.

I was with her then.

I detached, dreamless,

In her palm, I rest my head,

With her, I am still.

I grow to her size,

My thoughts, hers, in parallel,

I grow to her age,

I miss her more now

More than imaginable,

More than she could dream.

I listen with love now,

I rest my head on soft, cold pillow,

Now, I am still.

abrupt burst of pain

loss, bewilderment, anger

touch, warmth, comfort, peace;

learning, blossoming

developing, flourishing

trying, becoming;

plan, hope, work, suffer

yearn, dream, fail, succeed, repeat

build, strengthen, worry;

guide, mentor, relax

recline, watch, wait, remember

begin to wither;

lasting loss looming

light dimming, dark consuming

sweet oblivion

Hello, Writers and Dear Readers.

What does dating a mortician, roadkill shoutouts, Shakespeare, tons of talent new to the site and our resident legends, a bad haircut, and over the counter flu meds have in common? The answer needs to be, "Nothing," but in today's video, each of those elements, and a few more, collide into each haiku in our last Challenge of the Week being read, after introducing the new Challenge of the Month, with a bit of pizzazz on this one.

Here's that link.

https://www.theprose.com/challenge/14207

And here's the link to the video on The Prose. Channel. I know for sure I dropped or misread a few words or usernames, but show mercy, if you would. I'll tag some of the writers in the comments, and a few writers new to Prose.

And, to them, from us: Big family home here. Pick a room, and walk downstairs for the feast, whenever you feel like it. Welcome home.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FIElCwRN3Y

And.

As always.

Thank you for being here.

-The Prose. team

Grand expectations

Pressure to grow and prosper

Parents exhausted

Boy missing milestones

Parents can’t bear another

Growing up alone

No friends in high school

And no allies in college

Until he meets her

They don’t have too much

But each other and cheep beer

Together, they’re happy

She falls ill so soon

Leaves before he says goodbye

Born and dies alone

Brought into this world

With no say in the matter

many years ago

A child scrapes his knees

Treats the wound in a puddle

Friends laugh, so do I

No more jobs in town

Faithless are the once faithful

The lifeblood drained

I’m falling in love

Thirty hours of pain, and my

Wife births my whole world

An old man, am I

In the mirror, he looks tired

A flash, and it’s gone

new life form swelling,

an abdomen filling with

something near poison.

light is violent to

such sheltered eyes and pale skin

wishing for blindness.

this is why we cry,

at first breath of air, callous

thickens in our throat.

it covers every

tender inch of us until

there is nothing felt.

mercy may take the

shape of a death before life's

allowed to begin.

I was silent

But my eyes were screaming and my lips cracking

I was so sick

There was no other word to describe it

But I was just ready to give in

To go home

To lie there in the dark and fade into nothingness

But I didn’t even know what nothingness was

My body had been filled for as long as I could remember

My brain filled with thoughts, my eyes filled with tears, my back filled with pain

That it was time to let go

It was time to feel that feeling, to just feel empty for once in my life

My eyelids were heavy and I began to give in

Until I hear the calling of my name

It didn’t exist in the moment but it had in the past

And that was what I couldn’t give up

The hurt was no longer something to resist but something to love

Because that’s what life is

Not pain but love

This is my warning.

My cautionary tale.

Never go to the circus.

Never go there.

When we went to the circus,

We didn’t have fun.

All the clowns had sharp knives,

But we had none.

Please forgive me, my brother.

Please wait for me.

Please!

Please don’t leave me behind.

Please wait for me.

PLEASE!

I apologize, boys and girls.

I’m jumping ahead in the story.

Let me start at the beginning,

Before the circus got gory.

It was a dark summer night.

The circus was in town.

My family bought tickets.

My brother hates clowns.

First, we met the Ringmaster.

She hypnotized the crowd.

She wore a grand top hat,

And took a grand bow.

Then it was time for the three-ring circus.

The Lion Tamer whipped lions and tigers

On purpose.

We saw dancing bears,

Elephants and giraffes.

We all loved the Freak Show.

We pointed and laughed.

The Ringmaster revealed

The last act of the night.

There were so many clowns!

It was quite the delight.

But my brother doesn’t like clowns.

He didn’t want us to stay.

We all should have listened

To my brother that day.

The clowns juggled balls,

Told jokes, and did tricks.

The clowns juggled hammers.

They juggled fire, and bricks.

It was frightening.

It was exciting.

We thought it was fun.

Until the clowns juggled knives.

I wish I'd had one.

A sad clown yelled a joke

Out to the crowd.

His face was painted

With a horrifying frown.

WHAT DO YOU SAY TO A CLOWN WITH A KNIFE?

YOU DON'T SAY ANYTHING.

YOU RUN FOR YOUR LIFE.

All the clowns laughed.

The crowd went silent.

The clowns weren’t so funny

When they became violent.

My brother doesn’t like clowns,

And my brother was right.

No one survived the circus that night.

The day before my birthday

This challenge ended

To judge my wordplay

And cleverness defended

Tasked with a long poem written

To change the world or just one life

OK, you can say I've bitten

To meet criteria that suffice

So here it lies

A poem about nothing

And the space it occupies

Further exam says I'm bluffing

I've got nothing to say

And a meter to say it in

Be it take a night or a day

I just do what I've been bidden

I can drop names of import

Like Jesus, Nietzsche, or Freud

Or even God as a last resort

Or deny Him to the void

As long as it sounds deep

It will get some attention

From the literary sheep

Who thrive on pretension

I want to please the ones who like Shakespeare

And wax iambic—I amb what I amb

To make the statements that soon disappear

They're written temporarily in jam

For those who like Dickenson

I can choose a meter for

A singsong Caruso, like Robinson

Gilligan and more

For ee cummings fans

I ups so many floating words say

Punctuations all **%^%

And sensibility's defrayed

And once I wrote a limerick

That was--like this poem--a trick

It didn't mean a thing

And couldn't help from being

A poem written by a prick

And haikus lose me

In terseness and in nonsense

Too few words to see

And free form is just

An excuse

To vomit jabberwocky

And -ish from my jibber

As I pine about truth and justice and

The American weigh

Your options carefully

Writing pall-mall and willy nilly

Until I can throw in

Someone like Camus in the mix

It's just absurd!

If you read this backward

It can certainly serve

As a self-righteous op-ed

Of opinion that strikes a nerve

You just can't beat

Pithy and laconic

But this poem can neither meet

Metaphyzzy or ironic

Yesterday was the 4th of September

Labor Day for expectant mothers

The day before my birthday

Cooking dogs and burgers with others

One day we'll all be dead

And history won't remember

The cow we grilled or us we fed

On that 4th day in September

But words and rhymes are cheap

And come easily without fail

The bullshit in long poems is deep

When everything's on sale!