I went to the well

To hear the echo sound

Nothing came;

Bereft I tried again

And from the depths

A groan was heard

Low and staccato

Like speech was hard

All the way from hell

Even though, before

When times were kinder

The voice that came

Was musical as bells.

I frowned and yelled

Perhaps too rudely

But this time around

No news came back

From underground;

At least nothing good.

My echo framed the question:

Who is it then, who dares

To ask but does not listen?

When the earth writhes in pain

As foul weather

And disease appear again.

Is it because you think

It’s gold the sound

Of your opinion,

Gold enough to hear again?

But that which glistens

Is all reflection;

This much is clear:

If you have brought no wisdom

You will never find it here.

before bars were illegal

there were darkly lit rooms and house music

slurred wit that never pulled men in

a Jane Austen novel, millenial-style

later I sip a vodka soda

picking up phone numbers

at my litte sister’s wedding

desperation sinking in

like it only can when you’re thirty

still renting monthly

pouring bitters into a boozy Friday morning

loneliness shaken, not stirred

happiness in a sub-plot you

didn’t get a part in, you useless actress

pretending to be strong and independent

code for: couldn't get a man to stick around

happiness is unlike

lipstick that gets in your teeth

at a wedding speech

where bitterness

seeps in

it ebbs and flows

and mostly

stunts my growth

a real grown-up revelation

in the bar’s bathroom you’re puking in

Clutch my hands and don’t let go,

Feel my breath and make me glow

Push my hair behind my ear,

And let me know, are we the perfect pair?

I see a world through your hazel eyes

Do tell me, is it paradise?

Looking at you, my heart feel light,

As you wrap me up in this hug so tight.

You make me blush, you make me warm,

As you touch my face with your tender palm.

I just can’t say how I feel right now,

So is this what they call as love?

Buried in your tight embrace,

Is really when I solace

The world is nothing when I have you,

And the whole of me is just for you.

Oh look, the stars are smiling,

And look, the trees are dancing!

Come let’s flee to the land of love

Under the sea to the land of love.

*So yet again I exceeded the word limit for a Challenge - but it was worth it! So here it is randomly and you can find the original Challenge here: https://theprose.com/challenge/10235

A poem from Mazzmyrrheyes

Another joke or pearl from JimLamb

Finder's posts are hard to find

But worth it when I did

GaryEnglish follows his handle

And Huckleberry is Hoo you follow

Dctezcan warms your heart

Either with kindness or a sociopath's microwave

rLove327 plugs away with coffee

Rhlencash spits out another ballad

Tuskntale makes me smile

While Mnezz curates my whole day

Harry_Situation brings the geek out

2bamboopanda keeps it real

Undermeyou brings everyone together

Ribeyemoshpit makes me laugh

Taki writes mysteriously

Lexicon meticulously

ajrfanze keeps it short but sweet

BarAloiscious has to, but maybe grits their teeth

I nearly miss SaroSathivelu's gems

She digs real deep it seems

Inlovewithwords definitely loves them

Wordvom fills the void with dreams

Luthien diligently taps away

GhostHerald plays a tune

dominospice is sad but nice

Beancounter chases away the grays

Boxcartramp tramps out the dust

Rustknight squeaks along

Dragonchild likes it wild

KassKatt likes it strong

TomJonas spins a fancy phrase

The_Book_Girl_K crafts a castle

charlottewrites (oh yes she does)

Hazelnut blooms like a warm cup of coffee

I can't fit them all

Into a Prose challenge, really

But I will spend as many minutes as I can

When they have spent theirs making my day

My father died. Two days before my son was born. That happens to be exactly 27 years ago today.

I was on bed rest when he died. My mother called my husband and told him to go outside to a pay phone – it was the days before cell phones – but to be surreptitious about it so that I wouldn’t realize anything was going on.

And so, she told him and they cried together, him somewhere in the streets of Philadelphia, her in her home in New York. And they decided not to tell me until after the birth – their logic being that they didn’t want to affect me or the baby in some negative way.

I don’t’ know how I didn’t notice red eyes or a grieving soul. I usually read my husband’s every mood and feeling. But not that day.

Two days later, I slept poorly and assumed it was the greasy burger and fries my husband had cooked for dinner. Did I mention that I had been on bed rest for four months and hadn’t seen my dad since Christmas when he was bursting with excitement for the grandson or granddaughter in my belly? He went on and on about the things they would do together, the most important being fishing. He couldn’t wait to go fishing. Sometimes that is what makes me cry more than just his death: the knowing how excited he was about his first, would be, grandson. And they never met except perhaps in transit as one soul left and another came to me.

So, two days after my husband and mother decided not to tell me, I got sick in the middle of the night. Except I wasn’t sick. I was going into labor. We called the doctor and my mother. Then we called a taxi to take us to the hospital.

A little over five hours later, I gave birth. As I lay there with my beautiful son on my chest, the doctor said, “Oh, by the way, your husband and your mom didn’t want to tell you before, but your dad died on Monday.”

The nurse’s jaw dropped as did that of the midwife and the midwife intern. I suspect I burst into tears, but I really don’t remember.

I guess there would never have been a good moment to tell me. And perhaps in the face of this new life in my arms, it was the best moment really. There is no time to fall apart and grieve when a new little human needs you like you have never been needed before.

And so, you do what you must, and carry on.

“I miss you, Daddy,” she whimpers

crying in the night

holding her dear teddy bear

waiting for daylight

hoping against hope

that when she opens her eyes

Daddy will be there

and give everyone a surprise;

They keep saying he’s not coming back

that he’s gone to be with God

but she’s praying he’s just hiding

though that thinking is flawed

for she saw him lying in the church

saw them put him in the ground

watched them cover him with dirt

placed flowers on the mound.

She burrows under the blankets

hugs her teddy to her heart

quietly listens to the silence

for a whisper in the dark;

if she listens closely,

she’s certain that it’s true,

she’ll hear her daddy say to her

“Darlin’, I miss you, too.”

They always say "write what you know", something I as a writer of fiction with sometimes outlandish / otherwordly elements find annoying. More recently though, as quarantine progresses and I realize I can be a completely different person at home / depending on who I'm interacting with, I have come to the conclusion they're not wrong. Now is the perfect time to write about things we wouldn't normally know from personal experience:

Vampires -

They eat erratically by normal standards, keep more or less nocturnal hours, and require explicit permission before entering someone else's space. You're ready to write vampires if you have been experimenting with:

- most productive hours are between 10pm and 5am local time

- midnight snacking

- not texting people too frequently without express permission in case you might conceivably be bothering them

Dragons -

Known for generally being hoarders, whether of gold or wisdom, dragons are frequently portrayed in literature as the antagonist. Now's the perfect time to get a view from the other side of the cave, as it were:

- You're just trying to mind your own business but people refuse to keep their distance

- It's a good thing the libraries are closed, you're going to need at least another month to finish all the books you currently have

- Your work-from-home spot is more or less a nest - look, there's no such thing as too comfortable, all right?

Elves -

Typically sylvian beings, graceful, and incredibly skilled. You would, too, if you had spent several lifetimes on your hobbies. Consider:

- It's not like there's much else to do, so now is the perfect time to perfect you [hobby here] skills. By the time the stay at home restrictions are lifted, you'll be a pro

- You've been dressing up despite the fact nobody would know if you wore PJ's all day... come to think of it, you may be fancier now than most normal days. Whatever, you've always wanted to wear that shirt to work but never quite been certain how well it would be received. Here there's no-one to stop you

- You're not allowed in public, but there's plenty of space in forest preserves with the option to duck into the shrubs to maintain proper social distance

Brownie -

Traditional folklore tells of a variety of faerie that cleans house for those who leave a dish of milk in the pantry. Whatever you do, though, don't anger these helpers: they can turn into boggarts and inflict mayhem and misery. Maybe brownies are your next writing project if:

- You've cleaned your house at least twice, and there's not really anything left to clean

- You have been strangely productive lately

- So help whoever gets between you and your cleaning or other projects

Demons -

There are several tomes out there discussing the various appearances and armies of particular denizens of the underworld; some varieties are more closely associated with a particular religion but all cause trouble. Maybe it's time to write a demon if you:

- Have been involved in creating small armies, be they plastic minifigures or origami penguins

- Are running out of pranks to play on your household before a member thereof seriously considers murder

- Consider 'malicious glee' and 'schadenfreude' both to be legitimate sources of entertainment

Zombies -

Mindless, if beige had an embodiement zombies would be the stumbling manifestation. Maybe it's time for zombies if:

- You no longer have a sense of time, it all seems to go somewhere without much getting done in the interim

- Self-care has slipped, and you'd much rather just stay in bed

- All you want to do is chew somebody's head off, whether it's to get some sense into them so they wear a mask / wash hands or because they won't stop singing when you're on a conference call

So I guess when you get down to it, right now is like any other time: it is what you make of it. When school's over and I'm no longer doing homework constantly, I plan to make some pretty great things, and I hope you do too whenever you have time

after Anne Boyer

I am not skipping stones across rivers. I am not skipping pebbles, even. I am not skipping across a hopscotch chalked on cement, one-legged on the one, two on two and three. I am not skipping down a grocery-store aisle chasing reflections of fluorescent lights. I am not skipping like a child, too. I am not skipping like someone without something to lose. I am not skipping down mountains because that might hurt my ankles. I am not skipping on even ground, either. I am not skipping on the unskippable, like clouds or stars or anything fuzzy and impossible. I am not skipping over black holes or past leaf-obscured pits. I am not skipping class. I am not skipping my medicine, not again, I am over that and I swallow them now. I am not skipping anything but I am especially not skipping garbage in creeks—the little pieces of plastic would just float in the deer piss anyway.

I don't have a storybook life.

I am simply ‘normal’.

A privileged girl

who does privileged girl things

And has privileged girl hobbies.

Not a total brat,

But not fully grateful.

I always wanted more.

I wanted a life like the ones in the stories that always filled my head.

I never realized adventures were so appealing

because they always ended happily,

and if they didn't

I could be glad it wasn't real.

So I messed myself up,

And learned the dark side of books.

My fantasy changed to realistic fiction.

I didn’t recognize my life becoming bookish until him.

Everything he said was textbook depression.

“Make the voices stop.”

“I can’t.”

“Go away.”

He even swallowed sleeping pills to complete the story.