Lately I’m at a loss for words.

Nothing I write seems deep enough, meaningful enough.

Nothing I write seems to mete out the angst and desolation I seem to harbor despite any and every effort to heal.

I spend my days in a blurry haze of endless darkness and despair, waiting for the small glimmer of hope to spark my dark skies.

Where I am now, where you have left me is a place I would wish upon no one, not in a million years.

Writing this post reminds me of this Richard Siken quote-

“You swallow my heart and flee, but I want it back now, baby. I want it back.”

~Love. Loss.

Dear Magnificent Mofos:

What does a Bastard have in common with a Pearl, a Bottle, a Fire, and another writer with Implications? They each live and thrive in their neighborhoods, running their streets in the boroughs of Prose. and making their bones with words thrown down like no others. Watch them own their boulevards in today's feature on the channel:

https://youtu.be/MDFC55RDg2g

And.

As always...

Thank you for being here.

-The Prose. team

Dear Smooth Operators:

On the channel today, we feature a few writers you just might want to get to know, to follow three of our legends. Would have read for hours, but a certain aging gentleman is going to see even older gentlemen playing metal tonight. Hint: Whiplash...

Here's the link to the vid.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oZ7ouLRtzY

And.

As always.

Thank you for being here.

-The Prose. team

"Shit girl, come give your uncle Todd a big hug!”

Todd is not my uncle. I do not want to hug him nor any of my mother's “friends”. My mom likes to party so she brings these scumbag guys around and expects me to be extra friendly with them. Hugs and kisses. Laugh at jokes. Bring beers. Sit on laps.

No.

These guys say inappropriate things to me like, ’If she's old enough to bleed, she's old enough to need...‘ or ’If the field has grass on it, let's play!’ and my mom does NOTHING. She just does her little fake-ass laugh and tells me to lighten up.

I hate every single one of these disgusting bastards. I also hate my mother for bringing them into my 12-year-old life. I feel powerless over my life and who is in it right now.

There is one adult who is different. He is named Dale. Has has come to my rescue several times when others have tried to grab at me or speak to me in their crude ways. Dale is not gross like the others.

There are times he has picked me up from school because it was raining or my mother forgot. He drives an old Ford pick up truck. I call it a "potato truck" because it makes the sound 'potato-potato-potato' when it idles. Dale says he'll teach me to drive it someday. Dale is very nice to me.

I hate Dale the most.

All his kindness helped me figure out that he was, in fact, my biggest threat. Yes, I was young, but not foolish enough to believe his actions were altruistic. I think that eventually, once more trust had been established, he would be the one to attack me.

He wanted it that way— for me to trust him first. He was careful, persistent, and patient. Like a coiled snake watching a clueless mouse. It was just a matter of time.

Luckily, he never got the chance to strike. He got arrested later that year and went to jail for a long time. I never found out the nature of his crime, but I could guess.

Thank you, God, for looking out for me. Certainly none of the shitty adults in my life were.

The idea that love at first sight can happen lacks perspective. What kind of love are we talking about? Some loves are absolutely instantaneous. Finding out you're going to be a parent creates an immediate love for that new little life. Being largely visual creatures, that love is further cemented the second we see our newborn child. I also feel that my love for donuts is instantaneous. Show me a chocolate donut with sprinkles, and I am head over heels besotted.

Now, if you're talking about romantic love, I think love at first sight is the excrement of Hallmark Movies. In fact, I think the notion of love at first sight often begets doomed relationships.

Hoping to experience love at first sight is problematic because having an attractive appearance is a poor barometer of character, personality, and compatibility with someone. For example, a guy may be hung like a blue whale, have the body of a god, but is gifted with the intelligence of a sea cucumber. Also, appearance alone will not reveal a person's emotional or psychological stability. For example, A nicely dressed, charming, and handsome gent may seem nice at first, but his appearance and mannerisms will not reveal that the guy has a chest freezer in his garage stuffed with severed heads.

The powerful biochemical reaction created when someone sees a person they perceive as attractive is also confused for love at first sight. For example, in the case of a lady, seeing an attractive person may result in her becoming a bit moist in the knickers. For gents, seeing an attractive person may trigger a physiological response that appears as if the fellow has spontaneously sprouted a package of Rolos in the front of his pants. These physiological responses to attraction shouldn't be translated as love. It is an evolutionary adaptation that insures the continuation of the species by instilling both male and female with a need for sex and the desire to copulate with an aesthetically pleasing partner. In layman's terms, they're horny.

The belief in romantic love at first sight can also doom a relationship that likely wouldn't have happened if the couple got to truly know each other.

Please consider the following example of Sara and Tony and their fall into the love at first sight delusion.

Sara meets Tony at the grocery store while shopping for organic, ethically sourced, vegan, grown in worm abuse free soil, carrots that are harvested with biodegradable tools by the last hippie commune.. Sara sees Tony groping the honeydew in the produce section and immediately finds herself in need of fresh panties. Glancing up, Tony notices how Sara's yoga pants accentuate all of his favorite parts and little Tony salutes its approval. So, after a brief introduction by the celery they agree to meet for coffee.

The coffee date goes well. Tony and Sara have "Sooooo much in common!" He likes air. She likes air too. He likes YouTube videos of puppies. Guess what! She likes puppy videos too! It's like fate led them both to that grocery store's produce section. It wasn't the fact that as human beings Tony and Sara need to eat to survive and the grocery store where they met just happens to sell food. It also wasn't the fact that the grocery store happens to be the nearest store to where both Tony and Sara live. Nope. If you asked Tony and Sara they'd tell you it is fate and love at first sight that brought them together.

At the end of the second date, Tony subtly lets it be known that wants to take Sara to his place, peel off her yoga pants with his teeth, and fuck her until their bed rocking shows up as a small seismic event on a nearby Richter Scale. Guess what? She wants this too! I know, right! So the relationship is off to a great start.

After few more dates and small seismic events, Sara takes Tony to meet her family. Well, things go well until Sara notices that Tony is looking at her sister, Ashley with the same look he had right before they ruined his sheets. Glancing down, Sara notices that little Tony is at attention as big Tony sits raptly listening to her sister talk about how she found out which "Friends" character she is by taking an online survey and she's happy to be Rachel and all, but she doesn't like Ross because he puts off a creepy, cartoon giraffe vibe. Surprisingly, Sara manages to keep her cool until after dinner and the car ride home.

During the drive home, Sara confronts Tony about him eye fucking her sister, Ashley. To Tony's credit, he admits he found Sara's sister attractive. To his discredit, he asks Sara if she and Ashley ever thought about a threesome because he'd like to be the salami in that sister sandwich. And with that Sara's berates herself mumbling, "I can't believe I fucked him." Meanwhile Tony, being a little more optimistic thinks, "I wonder if its too soon to ask Sara for Ashley's number?"

So, Sara and Tony fell into the love at first sight trap. A wiser Tony and Sara would have recognized their feelings. In truth, what Tony and Sara felt was the reciprocal desire to fuck the other person until they both walk funny. This is all well and good, but it may not be the best foundation to build a relationship on.

All joking aside, real love is hard. Taking two individuals with their own unique perspectives, flaws and quirks and throwing them together is the ultimate sink or swim scenario. The couple aren't going to agree all the time and there will be times they don't like each other much. You also throw each other's families (or in my case genetic train wreck) into the mix. Inevitably, the two people will have to decide the fate of the relationship. In fact, this is likely going to happen more than once.

A couple can quit, walk away, and take care of the flotsam and jetsam of the relationship through lawyers later. This can be the best case scenario especially if there is abuse, addiction, or infidelity involved. Sadly, some things can't be fixed.

The other option is one of the hardest things a human can do. To save a relationship, both parties must set aside the preconceived notions, old resentments, insecurities and mistakes the other person made. Then standing there unencumbered of all the relationship bullshit we pile on ourselves, look at the other person. The questions that come to mind are going to be hard to answer. You will ask if you can imagine existing without the other person and how that feels. You will get honest and realize that a lot of what irritates you about the other person is really them being human and you being a jerk about it. You will question your role in the situation and realize that you are part of the problem. You will take an inventory of how you've changed each other and if those changes feel good and have the changes allowed you to be a better person not just for your partner. but also for yourself. Finally, you will ask yourself if this is the person you want at your bedside when your life's light flickers. The answers are intimate, individual, and sometimes not what you are hoping they'd be. However, that is love. It's not instantaneous, it isn't always candlelight and rose petal trails to the bedroom, and you will get angry sometimes. Real love is hard, frightening, heartbreaking, but always worthwhile work. Love at first sight is just lazy and things built with minimal effort are doomed to break.

It was one of the most fulfilling moments of my life: To be paid, and paid well, for a work of fiction to which my pen had given birth. My mind...my imagination. Finally, my creativity had given birth to something that would take on a life of its own outside of my mind. And I was getting paid!

It seemed like so much money at first. I mean, it was a lot of money. I had never been paid six figures all at once before. The taxes were significant. Not a surprise, but still depressing when you've already made a list of where the funds will go.

We had mold people come in and rip out the walls in the basement. They removed the mold I could smell but no one could see (a possible catalyst to my husband's Parkinson's) and waterproofed the walls before new floors, sheet rock, molding and waterproof paint. We also added a bath and shower so that my octogenarian in laws wouldn't have to trudge up two flights to use the full bath upstairs.

We hired an arborist to help the trees that look sick in our garden and remove the branches of the half dead tree that has been leaning on the roof for years. And then we replaced the roof (including adding insulation so we can stop losing all the heat in the winter). We used solar shingles -- for the environment, to lower our electric bills and to charge my husband's car [his favorite ever, by the way. The only one he ever named: kara ılan (black snake).]

We hired a contractor to paint my mom's house and a landscaper to take care of the bushes and weeds that drive her crazy, so that she can concentrate on planting the flowers she likes. We also paid for her annual trip to Vegas with a three week stay at the Bellagio, The Venetian and the Aria, and tickets to all her favorite shows.

We paid for my son's wedding so his fiancées family could concentrate on her baby brother's cancer treatment that insurance refused to cover; sadly, even with the specialized proton therapy, there was a concern that he could develop secondary cancers due to a genetic mutation.

We helped my step-brother pay for a home attendant since, after over a month in the hospital, a surgery, myriad tests, daily physical therapy and a severe case of diarrhea incurred while in the hospital, doctors could not figure out why he still couldn’t feel his feet (the original reason he was admitted to the hospital) and insurance was no longer willing to pay them to figure it out and certainly not for a home attendent.

At this point, not only had we spent every last penny of the check from my publisher, we had had to dip into our savings, something I avoid doing most of the time.

Clearly, I needed to write a sequel. Or two. Maybe I could get a movie deal...

Dear Sexy Word People:

Here's a quick feature for some requests from the Prose. profile inbox. Speaking of which, if any pieces, or writers in general, do it for you, and you want them featured, write in with the Prose. link attached, and we'll feature it if we can.

The Challenge of the Month XLII video is on the way next.

Here's the link for the quickie today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_GE3rW7sPE

And.

As always...

Thank you for being here.

-The Prose. team

School is starting next week. And I think I'm ready.

I'm ready to study as hard as I can.

I'm ready to ace all of my tests.

I'm ready to pass my AP tests.

I'm ready to make all of my teachers proud of me.

I'm ready to be the teacher's good example for work

I'm ready to prepare myself for the misfortune of group projects, doing everyone's work for them, only for them to get the same grade as I did.

I'm ready to meet all of my friends again.

I'm ready to laugh and smile and listen to music in the hallways.

I'm ready to meet my new teachers

meet new friends

and meet new classmates.

I'm ready to embarrass myself when I get a question wrong

and I'm ready for everyone to laugh at me because I was stupid

I'm ready to sit alone during lunch every single day

because all of my friends have different lunch periods

having at least one person they know that they can talk to, while I have no one

I'm ready to write my book during lunch

I'm ready to write my book during my free time

I'm ready to feel alone again

I'm ready to feel lonely

I'm ready to watch everyone laugh and smile with their friends while a stabbing sensation in my stomach invades my mindspace

knowing that I won't be able to have that same feeling

I'm ready for my mental health to drain

I'm ready to feel like I don't belong, no matter where I go

I'm ready to feel burnt out after I finish my school work

I'm ready to set high expectations for myself, and then the results would be the complete opposite of what I wanted

I'm ready to be scared of making new friends

knowing the last time I tried to make new friends

they hurt me badly

I'm ready to lose my friends

I'm ready to lose everyone I love

I'm ready to lose myself

I'm ready to cry over anything that was under a 100%

I'm ready to not let myself relax

I'm ready to be resilient over wandering bullies

I'm ready to beat myself up everytime I did something wrong

I'm ready.

I'm not ready.

4:48 P.M.

Beneath the pale moonlight

we dance in and out of time.

The gentle hawaiian breeze,

caressing our bodies

like war-torn distant lovers, united at long last.

The smell of Midnight Blue Citrus fills the air.

The ocean bellows our name,

as it billows upon the shore.

And lands upon our scampering feet