"Love," my husband said, not looking away from the T.V.

"What?"

"The answer to your question."

There had been a couple of questions. Like earlier, when I arrived home from work after being stuck in traffic for an hour and was greeted by angry meows.

"Why didn't you feed the cats?" I had asked.

He, sprawled out in front of the T.V., said nothing. His fingers tapped furiously over the controller in his lap. Tanks and armies surged across the screen, filling the living room with explosions and yells.

I made dinner, cleaned the kitchen, threw away empty beer cans. Tentatively asked for help. Nothing.

"What did I say?"

"What?"

I raised my voice to a scream and he looked over, blinking.

"You said something about the most important skill to build great relationships."

"That was yesterday!"

"Yeah, well," he said and disemboweled a soldier with a bayonet. "It's love."

His roommate calls him imo, the potato,

just another hick flailing

in the city, caged

in his tiny shithole apartment,

the unpacked boxes collecting dust.

He sleeps in the closet where

the futons are kept, at night

walking back from work,

he dodges careless elbows

on streets zebra-striped with crosswalks,

the herds

of bodies all color motion murmurs

over traffic.

He gapes at skyscrapers

looming steel walls all around him

and sees in them the mountains

of Toyama, its swells of pine,

sees the rice fields

swaying in the narrow streets

and turns to the murky night his blank face,

the city lights bright as the stars

in a quiet dark.

the

wind

slackens

the peeling pelt

of eucalyptus and

hurls pieces

of its flesh into the

swirling eddy

that envelopes the forest

remnants

a copse of corpses

sluggish the sun rises

over the cremation

and casts a red

eclipse from which the forest

shrinks away

repelled by the

recall of heat and loss

ashes

all is

ashes

trees unfold back to the earth

Greetings, Prosers,

It’s back. It’s Challenge of the Month.

Each month, we set you all a prompt within a Portal of our choosing. We then give you the entire duration of the challenge to create your literary splendor. After the challenge expires, the team will then take a look at specific data - number of reads, likes, reposts, and comments - along with reading the entries to ensure superior content. From there, we will choose fifteen pieces to be included in our new Prose Original Book. These books will be made up of your content, and will be sold on Prose for 500 coins. To find out whether your entry made it, you will have to grab yourself a copy.

So, what do you get in return?

If you are one of the lucky fifteen, you will receive 5% royalties for the lifetime of the book. This means non-Partners can also earn themselves some Prose coin, as anyone can enter. We think this is a new, quick, easy, and exciting way to become a published, professional author, and what better way to do that than with Prose‽

Let’s take a look at the second Challenge of the Month:

Prose Challenge of the Month #2: Write a story where you wake up as the most intelligent person on Earth. Fifteen entries will be featured in a 500-coin Prose Original Book, whereby each winner will take 5% lifetime royalties. You must purchase the book to discover its authors, who will be determined by objective data (reads, likes, reposts, comments) and by team vote to ensure reader satisfaction. When sharing to social media, please use the hashtags “itslit,” “getlit,” and “ProseChallenge.”

Write smart.

What better motivation than a brand-new challenge and a way to earn money and bragging rights when you become a professional author?

Until next time, Prosers,

Prose.

never

in the nature of the physical

realm of possibilities

approved, agreed of the tingle

between methyl and lighters.

flames

ablaze down oil-slicked

marble of what i am. i hear the

fragile, fallen, sullen down

your throat. emotions fuse.

friend,

our souls were ablaze, and just like that, i saw

the wildfire of untold phenomena

unveil the heart of the chemical,

lyrical, and melifluous, which matched

because

in the resolution between gasses and

energy, alcohol and heat - driven, we

find ourselves burnt in the incandescence

of the scorch and in this, the realization

materialized in ash

as ash

after the water finally smothered the fire,

the conservation of the fire

remain, as pure, concentrated, untainted

love as love can ever be

There are two types of people in this world.

They that raise their children

Like they're little versions of themselves,

And have every little detail taken care of-

And then there are those who let the children

Raise them.

In the wake of our waltz

On this darkening stage

I disclosed my deception,

My monster uncaged.

Sharpened claws on your neck

Razor teeth in my grin

Venom coursing my veins

As I rupture your skin.

Crimson coated my lips

Death reigns in my wake.

A true fiend in the flesh

For the lives that I take.

Where's the fear in your eyes?!

Where's the disgust in my name?!

Your whispered words in my ear,

"We are one and the same."

In the wake of our waltz

On this darkening stage

You disclosed your deception

And extended your fangs.

Blissfully aware of your power to bring me to my knees

Behind your fake innocence lies the real witch underneath

Inhuman is all you are hiding within that mortal body

Should I fear you? Or be grateful that you chose me?

As your vassal, as your toy to play with

To do what you like with my fragile soul

To fill my days with pain

To fill my heart with revulsion

You have no care, no shame

In you I cannot trust

But only for a moment

For when your lips meet mine

Does the tide seem to turn

I don't resist, I beg

I don't remorse, I yearn

For that unbreakable spell

The incurable disease your kisses are

Laced with poison ivy under rose pedal lips

I can't contain myself, I forget who I am

Until you release me like Velcro on my tongue

Then I realize my position again

As your prisoner without need of chains

I suffer this everyday

A vicious cycle

Hoping for an escape yet longing for her kiss

As she cuts me to pieces leaving me to grieve

Just a captive of tenderness and torture