Good morning, Prosers!

Another week has passed within a blink of an eye, and we find ourselves on week six of our Throwback Thursday Blog. Wowsers!

This week has seen our exciting and brand-spanking-new collaborative challenge of the week launch, with our friend Luke over at micropoetry.com (@pssms on Twitter). We have noticed so many more of you sharing your awesome words on Twitter and we have been retweeting you all. You certainly know how to keep us on our toes.

You still have a couple of days to enter this challenge and get your hands on $100 or $25 for being runner up. Get scribbling and sharing, pronto! We always want to share everything you write, so please ensure that you tag us with the @theproseapp username so that we know.

You may remember the challenge we ran in the feedback Portal a while back where we asked you what you'd do with Prose if you owned it. @emilyreads247 suggested tips, a place to share your novel writing ideas, journeys, and where we can share information with you from industry experts.

You will be pleased to know that yesterday we launched a Novel Writing Portal specifically for this. Not only did we launch the Portal, but we posted an interview we conducted with New York Book Editors. How's about that? We will, over the coming weeks and months, work hard to get more of these industry interviews, including pieces like “how to write a perfect pitch.”

As always, if you have any suggestions for new Portals, or blog pieces you'd like to read, get in touch with us, we love to hear from you.

And one last thing, Prosers. Stay tuned, as later today we’ll be launching an Elections 2016 portal, where you can all have your say and share your views in writing challenges about why each of the five main candidates should and shouldn’t be elected!

I love

getting older. 

Hate the idea of losing my looks

but

I prefer it to losing my mind. 

Because time 

Is the only way to put distance between 

small-me

sad small-me

hopeful small-me

teenaged-me

hurt teenaged-me

broken teenaged-me

bitter teenaged-me

young adult-me

ruined young adult-me 

cynical young adult-me

slutty young adult-me

selfish young adult-me

And 

right now-me. 

And right now-me just wants 

to get the fuck on with life 

and 

forget how to remember how to forget. 

I like getting older

I can say 

"That was a long time ago..."

"I used to be..."

"That's ancient history..."

"I was just a kid..."

and all these words become

more and more 

believable. 

As a defense

An explanation 

An excuse.

Finally my outsides 

are starting to catch up

My insides. 

My insides 

are old as sin

weary 

scraping along 

dragging my moorings.

Old.

Older than that one guy 

who lived 

for pretty much forever 

that I think they told me about. 

When I started to

forget everything 

though...

I didn't think it meant 

Everything-everything.

Not just the bad

scary 

stupid stuff

but the important stuff too. 

The one time I smiled for a picture

The time when I was I happy for a day

The 

Long long ago 

when something happened that made me laugh so hard I cried  

The time you actually showed up on time 

The day I didn't get in trouble for something I never even did 

The day (or month or year) when I was 

Just 

A 

Kid. 

I can't remember being 8 anymore

I've been forgetting 

that small-me 

for a long damn time.

I like getting older 

because I can say things like 

"Decades ago..."

It might be a stretch 

But

Lord knows if time is relative

Then 8 was 8,000 light years away. 

Don't remember much about 18 either

Probably for the best. 

Can't remember 21 if I tried. 

Except the lying and the nights I had 

Nowhere to go. 

Or was that 20? 

I can't remember much of 15 

I rarely think in chronological order

these days

15 is lost in the 

"pain/death/anger" file somewhere 

I think. 

There are years,

whole years

gone. Erased. 

365 times too many

evaporating like one of the

lots of kinds of smoke. 

Every second I get older

I put a second between

Right now-me

And so many things. 

That I hope 

One day 

Won't be there. 

"Can't remember"

So

I can't care. 

These, my handprints

on your tombstone.

This, my graveside speech.

My heart is no stranger

to your cemetery.

You're not gone yet,

but I'm trying to brace

for the imminent news,

of your stopped heart

and final strained breath.

So if I don't say much

these last few years,

don't think a problem lurks.

Just gone is thought, recording

memories and bracing self.

Goodbye.

This may be

the only way,

I'll have strength to say it.

Oh my darling you've had your fun,

I've kept the leash quite loose.

You've been out from moon to sun,

And reek of gin and juice.

Tousled hair and pearly teeth,

You always get your way.

But now i'll take sword out of sheath,

Wood sticks are child's play.

It's time to bring you down,

Perhaps not all the way.

On just one knee for now,

But not to kneel and pray.

i.

i swear to you

her bones were hollow

she had wings

hidden under her shoulder blades

and one morning

just after she opened her eyes

her dream came back for more

"if you cut me open

what do you think you'd find?"

i could not pull

these words from my stomach;

i could not tell her

what was the truth

that i had already found something

inside of her

lips taut and

breath shallow against

summer-dew skin,

we tumbled back

into sleep

ii.

when we awoke in the sea

of my once-white sheets

she smelled like virgin lace and lilacs

and i like cigarettes and pen ink

it was such a crime for me

to be next to her in this way

i cannot forgive

how she looked so yellow

while i was so red

she was the rising sun

and i was nothing more

than a stark brick house

on the wrong side of town-

out of all the parts of me

she could have had

why the hell did she take my heart?

I run.

I run to get.

I run to get away.

I run to get away from, me.

I run and I run,

3 a.m., dark country road.

I should be afraid, but I'm not.

I run and I run,

Until my shins ache, my body runs numb.

I run and I run,

Until I collapse, I get back up and

I run.

I run to get.

I run to get away from, me.

Mile after Mile, falling into tears,

I run and I run,

I've ran ever since, and

I'll run until...