Dear Writers and Readers,

We noticed some less-than-exemplary behavior on Prose today, which forced us to take action against some users. This is a gentle reminder that, while we try to remain as uncensored as possible, some forms of content are simply intolerable. Please note the following passage from our Terms of Service, under Prohibited Content:

Content that is unlawful, libelous, defamatory, obscene, pornographic, indecent, lewd, suggestive, harassing, threatening, abusive, inflammatory, fraudulent or otherwise objectionable, or invasive of privacy or publicity rights;

In today’s case, harassment was the keyword. We have taken steps to punish infringing users, and prevent future infringements. Note that we will not be adjudicating arguments, disagreements, or squabbles between users, unless we deem the language used to be grossly abusive or inflammatory.

1. We have added a report button to all posts. You’ll find the button in the lower-right options menu (indicated by an ellipsis icon) of every post. If you encounter a post that violates the Terms of Service, please report it.

2. We have instituted a temporary posting restriction policy against first-time offenders. If we find that you have been harassing folks, spamming, or posting any other sort of Prohibited Content, you will be prevented from posting, commenting, and sending messages for a minimum of three days. Repeat offenders will be permanently banned.

3. We have added an internal feature to remove offensive posts. Posts that violate our Terms of Service, or that provoke grossly abusive or toxic comment threads, will be marked as such and removed after 24 hours. During that period, commenting on such posts will be disabled.

Refer to Section 10 of our Terms of Service for all forms of Prohibited Content: https://theprose.com/p/legal/terms

Happy Writes,

The Prose Team

i'm a person who is always quiet

i'm a person who gets her work done

i'm a person who doodles for fun

i'm a person who wants to doodle for a job

i'm a person you can lend an ear to

i'm a person who will protect her friends

i'm a person who is willing to do anything to see the people she loves be happy

that is the type of person i am

You'd think it would be fun, wouldn't you? Waking up one day and realizing that not a single person in the whole world is as smart as you are. But it's not. It's not fun because it's not for the day, or the week, it's forever. And forever I will have to live with this power, this burden that I never wanted. That I never asked for. 

And I know what you're thinking. You're thinking that I'm selfish, that how could I ever possibly see this blessing as a curse. And trust me, I would've thought the same thing if it had been just ten hours ago. But this isn't ten hours ago, this is now. And now I've been faced with something I would have never expected. 

I've been faced with a power. And I don't deserve it.

Someone else should have woken up today and discovered that they were the smartest person in the world because I don't deserve it. A person who knows, not everything, but more than any other human in the world has a duty, a power, a voice. And with this voice, this person should be changing the world. Finding cures, eradicating crises, making outer-space discoveries, and educating others to create a better future generation. I know this, and yet I can't do it. 

Just because I'm smart now, doesn't mean I'm good. Just because I'm smart now doesn't mean I have the answers to the questions that actually matter. Just because I'm smart now doesn't mean I want to do anything. 

If this gift was miraculously given to me out of all the seven billion, four hundred and eighty-six million, five hundred and thirty-four thousand, nine hundred and ninety and counting people in the world then please, please it needs to go to someone else. I didn't even search up that number, it just came to my brain when I needed it to and that should not be happening.

I don't want to save the world. I don't want to look at the people around me and see every little detail in their personal life. I don't want to be overwhelmed with the endless information every time I look anywhere or at anything. I do it and I can't breathe because I can't shut it down, the numbers and facts, they just keep coming and coming and it's making my head hurt and my brain hurt and I know this is a run-on sentence and now it's bugging me and I don't want it to bug me and yesterday it would have been so useful to know on my essay but I didn't know it yesterday, I know it today and I hate it I hate it I hate it. 

And school, I can't go back to school where I know everything I could possibly be taught and I notice every mistake a teacher makes. I won't be able to talk to my friends anymore because I'll just always be, not one, but one hundred steps ahead. I'll hate them for the ignorance that isn't their fault, and they'll hate me for the knowledge that isn't mine. 

I never understood the saying "ignorance is bliss" but now I can't stop thinking about it. Oh, what I would give to live in complete ignorance, in complete bliss, never realizing my thoughts weren't my own and my perceptions were all twisted. I want to watch useless TV shows until it fries my brain, I want to live young and have no worries, I want to be reckless and laugh about it the next day, I want to feel the satisfaction of solving a problem I had wracked my brain on. 

Life is meaningless if there is not more opportunity to be challenged.

In a world that is a chess game, my only path is the path to victory, and yet I don't want the game to end.

Furiously her hand moved across the page, leading her pen in a dance of quick pace. It spilled out the words she was afraid to say and joined them together brick by brick. On these pages she was everyone, a queen, a lover, a simple maiden. If she could write it she would be it, an escape from realities cruel grasp.

Back and forth the pen flew across the ink filled page as she ignored the ticking clock and movement of fellow students rushing to class. None of it mattered not while her focus remained on the book resting carefully upon her pale legs.

This was who she was. The girl who loved to write away her sorrows. The girl that created dreams on a blank page. Magic in the form of words flowed through her veins, quickly she learned to control it, embrace it. Free from fears that once consumed her.

pulling apart myself 

tearing at my confidence 

fucked up by reality 

drowning in my sorrow 

broken down and loaded with unwanted thoughts of living 

walls of the past caving in 

hollow shallow heart 

knives sharping daggers 

body in fetal position

nails  piercing my conscience

ghost apart of my shadows 

hands arthritic and bent up 

constant plans screwed up hope 

faith mythical in believing in god will save me from going under 

two fingers down the throat puking up the truth 

spewing cutlets of facts 

no pretty words to cover up these opinions 

only the truth matters 

I am empty inside 

I don´t feel alive 

no I am picking myself apart 

and trying to pick up my heart 

my past breaks me 

my present revives me 

no matter how I began this story it ends the same 

I am broken and loaded with pain

Hearts desires pushed aside,

giving all I have left inside.

Self-subdued all for you;

hope for passion renewed.

Left waiting, pouring out.

Binding desire swallowed

fighting the blaze, left hollow.

For love, for you, self-denied.

To myself, maybe I have lied?

Left waiting, pouring out.

Desire bound with love's passion,

now bitterness burns a heart ashen.

Outside, words trying to inspire;

Inside dying, lying on the pyre.

Left empty inside, poured out.

I hate you but I don't know why

Were you truthful, or did you lie?

You said you loved me

But now you're nowhere to be seen

Life's not easy to live when you're living in a dream

Those happy days are no more

It's not much that I'm asking for

I just want you to be there

Did you even care?

Or did my heart get the better of me?

I'm not too proud to admit I'm lonely

You sit on your throne like nothing's wrong

Were you just using me all along?

You're the tallest trophy on the highest shelf

I'm down on the bottom, all by myself

night is never

dark enough

to hide the ghost

we know must 

be our breath

or the footsteps

of the ghost

we know must 

live here carved

out of water

spilling from 

our hearts 

night is only

the gossip of

hollow bones

the gossip of

ghosts that

become the body

bent in prayer

bent in sin

much farther

than close

waiting for

small deaths

of small moments

night is never

dark enough

to listen to 

our own echoes

the thinning

of a voice

like the whisper

that follows a 

shadow or the

vowels lost in

a forgotten sky

half-uttered

suspended in ink 

lah  2.15.17 ©®

Look

What do you see?

A pile of ruins and ash

Piercing screams that

Paint the sky black

Look

I see my childhood home

We were poor but now

I see it was all so grand

Compared to the debris

Look

The rubble garden, oh how it once bloomed richly

But now it is a graveyard

Many happy memories are buried there

Marked with a bouquet of bricks and mortar shells

Look

I see the chimney smoking; Fire.

Smell my mother’s Christmas baking; Burning.

Hear my father’s booming laugh; Bombs falling.

Feel nostalgia burning my eyes with tears; Fear.

Look

My hands are shaking

I own nothing anymore

Have nothing but the clothes upon my back

And my sisters arm in mine

Look

All my things are dust

My friends are filled

With bullet holes

But my memories are untouched

Look

There is still a light

In me

That falling shells

Can’t reach