I wasn't even allowed to drink in January because my friends and I had declared it "dry January." I was bored and sadly sober one night when I saw that a literary journal I sometimes submit to had submissions open for their March issue. Free of charge, just send the editor an email.

I wrote in my new crooked, fragmented style - something I hadn't published on Prose, because it has to be previously unpublished. I laid out my childhood and my awful ex-boyfriend like they were being hung out to dry.

I couldn't have even summarized what I had written after the fact, I had submitted it close to midnight and am usually forgetful of what I write anyway. Something about trauma, etc. etc.

7:54 a.m yesterday: an email from the editor. 'It is our pleasure to inform you...'

Wait, what?

Sipping coffee slowly, and then more quickly. This was my second submission to a publication outside of Prose since the year started.

Perhaps no one had submitted?

It feels good to be recognized, as mortified as I am that I laid my past bare, a midnight submission I had emailed for the hell of it. Now it will be spelled out to the world, trauma and my name together, separated by only a comma.

You never know until you try.

Vague but haunting Vision plagues me.

Rises fore me, as It deems,

Dominates, monopolizing

All of me, hellbent, It seems.

To cede vulnerability,

Low profile I emulate.

Ne’er I’ll know the consequences

If I, shaken, hesitate.

Something horror-struck is out there

Just beyond the ken of sight.

I fear It will overtake me,

Wrapped in tentacles too tight.