Mine is a reference to the E.E. Cummings poem, “I like my body when it is with your” I picked it like ten years ago now, but it stuck, and I use it for my photography and art as well. Here’s the piece -

i like my body when it is with your

body. It is so quite new a thing.

Muscles better and nerves more.

i like your body.  i like what it does,

i like its hows.  i like to feel the spine

of your body and its bones,and the trembling

-firm-smooth ness and which i will

again and again and again

kiss, i like kissing this and that of you,

i like, slowly stroking the,shocking fuzz

of your electric furr,and what-is-it comes

over parting flesh….And eyes big love-crumbs,

and possibly i like the thrill

of under me you so quite new

My user name, "Shallowgenepool" is a cautionary tale about the unknown horrors that are sometimes revealed at family gatherings. Case in point, at a family barbeque several years ago I overheard my mom talking to my aunt about how two of our relatives were first cousins and married. Before this conversation, I had often noted with tragic honesty how our family is trailer trash. In fact, we aren't the respectable live in a nice trailer park with functional sewer system triple wide trailer trailer trash, far from it. We're the ancient single wide that leans to starboard, located in a trailer park with a questionable sceptic system, most likely to operate as a side hustle meth lab, tailer trash.

Upon gaining this genealogical tidbit I announced over burgers and hotdogs that I will no longer tolerate being chastised for calling our family trailer trash. Being related to married first cousins I argued, made me uniquely and fully qualified to call us trailer trash. From that day forward I always said anyone who would marry into our family was dangerously diving into a very shallow gene pool.

I basically just use my name. When I first started I used Cerebral Emotion because I'm always analyzing the scenery within my thoughts. Eventually, after I got to know the community, I changed it to DaveK. Prose was in a transition back then from group to community, and it seemed more relatable and open.

Being old, I abhor technology and avoid social media (aka: am Clueless), I originally tried to set up my username on Prose with a space between, like this: Huckleberry Hoo. The site wouldn’t let me.

So then I tried a hyphen, like this: Huckleberry-Hoo. Shazam! It worked!

Then my future friend at the time, but since departed friend Mazzmyrrheyes said, “we can’t @ you like that! You need to make the hyphen an underscore, like this:”

“Huckleberry_Hoo”.

Berry well, but Hoo Hucking knew?

(Ha! See what I did there?)

Across the river, see me standing

A silhouette of someone, crooked shape

I stand on ashes, guilt within me burning

A faceless husk forever carrying shame

The name I bear is a reminder

Of all the pain I sowed and reaped

And just like memories I wish were long forgotten

The fire always walks with me

I've grown up around chickens. They were MY chickens. I started out with five, but right now I have forty-two. I've got seven males, two monarchs, two heirs, and the rest to the butcher. I've got red stars, red rocks, a black rock, and black hens which I don't know the breed of.

To be honest, I've always loved chickens. Whether alive or on my plate. But my dad bought me twenty-six chickens. Red stars. After two days all of them died. As chicks. SO dad got another batch. In this batch twenty-two died. Dad burnt three of them by dropping the light on them and so I was left with one.

She was quite energetic and always was running around her box. So, I named her after a warrior book cat, Fleetfoot. She was absolutely the best. She would stand on her stuffed animal and tweet. I would pick her up in my sleeve and she would cuddle in my hand.

Fleetfoot is honestly my favorite chick of all time. But I had to go to school. And I would have loved to see her grow up. While I was away she climbed up her stuffed animal and tweeted. She probably tweeted half of the day. But I found her at the end of school and she had fallen to her death.

So, now all my usernames are in memory of her.

I just joined with my King, @MisterEnigma. The crux of our love story is that we are perfect for each other because our fkd-up-ness. Even though he’s the Yin to my Yang in every way, our pasts should’ve IMMEDIATELY disqualified us as a couple (a very personal story for another day, but imagine a lion and a zebra falling in love).

He’s tall, strong, stoic, and driven by logic—I’m short, fragile, fiery, and driven by passion. We are both word nerd writers who care about the same things, but the odds of us meeting were astronomical (no, we didn’t meet online). Yet somehow, like two parts of an 8-billion-fkd-up-piece-puzzle, we fell perfectly into place.

We actually fell in love by writing old school letters back and forth and we’ve been describing our relationship “like a puzzle” ever since. Our first “I love you” letter to each other was sent just one hour apart! It was truly meant to be. So… we wanted a play on letters and/or words that would reflect our love.

I thought of the Latin word “aenigma“ for puzzle. Then, being the film fanatic I am, I remembered in Batman Forever that The Riddler used a riddle to tell Batman his identity. Using a pseudonym called “Mr. E” (as in Mr. E Nigma), the “mystery“ behind Edward Nigma was revealed. We could’ve used Mr. E. Nigma but we didn’t want to copy the movie exactly.

Of course my darling got the cool name (MisterEnigma) since he’s the guy, so I had to come up with a female version. I was gonna use “MissEnigma” but I couldn’t bear the thought of calling myself “Missy” (no offense, I just don’t like that name). Instead, I used his actual nickname for me which is “Lil’ Girl” and came up with LilEnigma. I love the name Lily (LilE) and I’m the “Lil” missing piece to his “mystery” (MisterE). I’m just little compared to him and calling him “Mister” as a sign of respect and eager submission is something I really enjoy as well. It all fell right into place, just like us.

If you made it this far, thank you for taking the time to read a little about us. We’re so thrilled to be here!

——

PS: I’m sorry if my cussing offended you. I’m curious as to what all we can/can’t post on the Prose website. I have a pretty filthy mouth and I write really dark true stories about my “unique” experiences. However, I’ve never gone public with my writing before now, so I have no gauge on what’s “too much”. I personally detest censorship, but hurting others is worse. Any advice? Guidelines? Thanks!

Like all the best things in my life, my name magically fell into my lap at the perfect moment. I didn’t ask for it, I didn’t need it, I didn’t work for it or agonize over it, and I didn’t question it. I knew it was meant for me immediately. I knew it was a gift. I didn’t choose my name; my name named itself.

If you saw a picture of me, you might think I’m pretty. You might think I’m cute or smart or dumb. You might think a lot of things. One thing you probably wouldn’t think…I’m scary.

I’m dark and twisted. I’m afraid of my own thoughts. I’m tormented and tortured. The only dreams I remember are nightmares. I love scaring children and watching scary movies. I scream when I’m scared and my screams will scare you too.

There’s a beautiful juxtaposition within me.

Pretty girl.

Scary girl.

Scary stories.

Pretty Scaries.

There are so many different types of writers. I am the type who loves to not talk to anyone all day, drink tea, read my favorite novels, and eat carrots with ranch dressing at three in the morning.

I also love typewriters.

They're so fancy. And beautiful. And so much less distracting than a computer. So much quicker than writing by hand.

I wanted: 1. To create a typewriter pun, and 2. To express how different we all are. And how special it is to create connections with other writers and appreciate both our differences and our similarities.

Also, writers type, right? So type righter. I mean typewriter.

My initials are AJ, and I also developed a habit as a 8-year-old of speaking in third person, referring to myself as "The Girl" (something that annoyed my parents and siblings, haha). One day I needed a username for some random website, those facts popped into my head, and since "The Girl AJ" sounded weird, I went with "That Girl AJ". Remove the spaces for aesthetic reasons, and you get "ThatGirlAJ". I've used it for many, many things since then, and it's my go to username now.