"But real love," she says,

"is when you'd

sew your skin into

the skin of your lover to

become one.

If I could cut off

my arm

from the elbow

and cut yours off as well

and join them together

as one limb, I'd go for

it. I'd then follow

with the other

arm, then the legs,

and finally the chests and

the foreheads

and lips.

We'd die of course, but that

would be the

beauty of it. We'd die

together, as one.

We'd become a mass of filth

and puss and

rot and

eventually melt into a single

substance.

That would be heaven.

You'd do

that for me, wouldn't you,

darling?"

Lying in bed,

he removed the pillow

from his face. It did nothing

to silence her. Of course

it did nothing.

Because she was not real,

only in his head.

They were already one

and the same

and as one-and-the-same

as they could get.

"C'mon already!" she

shouted. "Say that

you love me too!"

"Uh, I do," he mumbled,

a hand rubbing

circles at his

right temple

"Of course you do!" she

said. "However, last morning

when you fell

asleep

somehow, for some

unthinkable reason, your

dreams were not of me. I don't

understand how

such a tragedy could

have

occurred.

It's hell!

The simple idea of separation

between the two

of us is hell, darling, and I

don't wanna abandon you

in hell.

Don't worry. I'll keep you

awake. Dreams aren't

good for you.

I'll keep them away

and myself close."

He covered his face

with the

pillow again

and held his breath

She went on, "You know

what I dreamed last

time I was

asleep?

Of you, of course!

I dreamed that you were

so small and so

cute

and I could hold you

in my palm

and play with you so nicely

and squeeze you

all over

and, my ultimate fantasy, chew

on you!

Oh yes! I put you whole

in my mouth and

bit down on your chewy

cuteness.

Then I bit you in the middle

and tore your

torso off

and swallowed your bottom

half completely.

I came at that moment. Yes,

it was a very wet

dream.

I kept the top half of you

in my palms

and watched your beautiful

guts ooze out.

Ah, they were like swollen

spider legs. And I

made you walk

and crawl on them all

over my body.

Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap,

your hot gut-legs across

my sweaty skin went

up and down,

up and down.

Oh, and I swear the only

bad thing about

this dream was that it

ended too early. Just

when I was about to

sew your guts

on a spot

between my breasts.

But what am I saying? The right

time for that dream

to end would've

been NEVER!!!

Right, darling? Right?"

He tossed the pillow

away

and stood

Walked out of the

bedroom

and into the kitchen

"Darling!" she shouted

in his head. "What do

you think

of my dream?

Most wholesome

thing ever, right

darling?

Riiiiight?"

He opened a cupboard

and reached for

a little box of

sleeping pills

Opened it

"Darling?

What are you doing? What's

that?"

He poured a few pills

into his palm,

about six,

and swallowed them quickly

and placed his head

sideways under the

tap to suck at the

stream of water as he

turned it on

"What silly behavior,

darling," she said. "Those

things will

make you sleepy.

It... It wouldn't be

a problem if

you'd dream of me, but...

What if you don't?

Can you imagine? What if

you go to sleep

for hours and hours

and... Ah, I don't even

want to think about

it!"

He went back into

the bedroom

"Darling,

get those things out

of your lovely

stomach now! C'mon, let's

vomit together!"

But the only thing he

could do now

was start crying

and throw his numb body

forward

like jumping into a pool

so he could land with

the head into the

corner of

the nightstand

It was a fairly

loud bang

and he stayed down

lying on the floor, luckily

on a carpeted portion of it

He was on his side

so it was alright

even if he vomited in his

sleep

The sleep didn't

come yet

but something better

came.

A silence so sweet and

so mercifully tender

that his numb face

turned into a smile as

the eyes closed

It'll be alright

She will come back

by the time

he'd wake up

but she

wasn't always

so bad

Sometimes she

was

actually quite all right

Some time ago

when he worked up

the courage

to tell his

father about her,

the father said,

"Meh, that's nothing,

try living with

a real woman and then

see what it's

like to go mad for

real."

Of course

father was drunk more often

than not

so he didn't know

much about

women that were real

and women that were real

only to certain men. He

had his own

demons to live with

Everyone must

have those

else they're either

a boring saint who spends

a lifetime meditating

in caves

or not a complete person

to begin with

Yeah... demons

complete us

as humans

Why should one seek

to live without

them?

***

INSTAGRAM:

https://www.instagram.com/bogdan_1_dragos/

The cart barricade shunts us

suspects past the wary checkout lord.

No one sane buys salad at midnight,

so management routes us to chips, beer,

and night-checkout man, tall and fifty.

We of the early morn file through

his glare that roves our

pockets for bulges and

rolls a teacher-poet

into the hoi polloi so that

for a time I do belong here,

for a time I am not marked

by education and station in

this low wage GED town,

my politics temporarily

indistinguishable from the camo-clad

MAGA man who also heads for beer:

comrade of twilight hours,

brother of the empty fridge.

They shelve the Bud and Keystone

an aisle apart from oatmeal stouts

and wittes. I meditate on pairings

for spinach-artichoke dip.

Nothing shouts out privilege

so much as the desire to doff it,

like a handcrafted cap.

My compatriot carries Coors

toward the self-checkout machine

that declines his card; he curses,

night check-out man scowls.

I pay and pass unobserved.

The truth is, I lack

sufficient they to feel

a bona fide we.

The truth is, I moved

to a town that will never forget

I’m from elsewhere.

The truth is, my beer

tastes delicious, and I deserve

dislocation and scorn.

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I am struggling

My hands are trembling

It's suffocating here

I thought you were the right one

Yet, your handsome words don't manifest themselves

What a deceiver you are.

I wish to go faraway, yet not vanish.

You should remember me, for I were once your lover.

Serious is as serious does

Serious is as serious goes

Serious is as serious means

Serious is as serious cleans

Serious is as serious chants

Serious is as serious eats

Serious is as serious dreams

Serious is as serious believes

Serious is as serious encounters

Serious is as serious writes

Serious is as serious haunts

Serious is as serious kills

Serious is as serious screams

Serious is as serious drills

Serious is as serious prays

Serious is as serious slays

Serious is as serious days

Serious is as serious pays

Serious is as serious toys

Serious is as serious joys

Serious is as serious ploys

Serious is as serious dunes

Serious is as serious means

Serious is as serious gains

Serious is as serious jeans

Serious is as serious deems

Serious is as serious leans

Serious is as serious drinks

Serious is as serious clinks

Serious is as serious thinks

Serious is as serious hops

Serious is as serious elopes

Serious is as serious ropes

Serious is as serious clogs

Serious is as serious clogs

Serious is as serious vlogs

Serious is as serious lanes

Serious is as serious manes

Serious is as serious vanes

Serious is as serious veins

Serious is as serious vines

Serious is as serious vikings

Serious is as serious stockings

Serious is as serious hunts

Serious is as serious punts

Serious is as serious pints

Serious is as serious mints

Serious is as serious minks

Serious is as serious tinks

Serious is as serious blinks

Serious is as serious bins

Serious is as serious tins

Serious is as serious pins

Serious is as serious kits

Serious is as serious fins

Serious is as serious gins

Serious is as serious coins

Serious is as serious soils

Serious is as serious oils

Serious is as serious toils

Serious is as serious broils

Serious is as serious yodels

Serious is as serious towels

Serious is as serious foils

Serious is as serious gravels

Serious is as serious travels

Serious is as serious waterfalls

https://theprose.com/challenge/2626

?¿ (c) 7.7.2022 Jeudi

I’m lonely in the sense that everyone knows

my name but no one wants to say it. I just wish

someone would ask me what I’ve wanted all along:

to live in a lake & never grow taller than the water.

To pronounce myself as a family of coral.

But I am lonely as forever, lonely as infinite,

as natural sequences, as order, as Google.

I do take comfort in the lack of a lonely growth;

I can’t wake up to more lonely unhoused bones.

Everyone I’ve ever met has their own least favorite elegy.

Mine tastes like soap in my throat & lives forward

& forward like a wheel goes around its axle. I’m okay!

I’m still sad, though. Say hello if you pass me on the streets.

We can talk about disappearing. We can lay on the floor & dream

of becoming black holes. In my favorite someday, I meet someone

who recognizes me instantly. It’s ridiculous, but beautiful.

Happy November Writers and Readers;

Fall is a time of change, a time of ponderance, preparation, and preservation. And with the final month of fall comes our first $100 Challenge of the Month, wherein we explore the bright colors and darkening skies of autumn. Not only will the winner receive the $100 purse, we’ll also be sharing all outstanding submissions with our publishing partners and contacts. When you’re ready to get started, you’ll find the prompt here: https://theprose.com/challenge/7775. Best of luck!

With the arrival of our monthly challenge, we thought we’d shed a little light on how we’ll be judging your entries (and how we’ve been judging your entries in the Challenge of the Week). In particular we look for: creativity, fire, memorability, coherence, proper grammar, and linguistic mastery. Let’s take a closer look.

The First Paragraph

We read a lot of your writing, and usually don’t have the time to give every word and sentence the attention they deserve. As such, we will commonly eliminate entries immediately if the first couple of paragraphs are rife with spelling or grammatical errors, don’t read clearly, or don’t intrigue. Our advice - make your first paragraph your best paragraph. Make it captivating and irresistable. Make it shine. More advice on how to do so below.

Creativity

Written creativity can take many forms, and pervades every category along which we judge. It could take the form of compelling characters, exotic settings, unusual word choice, unique story arcs, and everything in-between. We want to think “wow, I would never have expected/conceived of/realized that.”

Fire

Fire is passion. We want to see your love for the craft of composition shine through. Whether a controlled burn, or a raging blaze, we want to see your dedication to the story, the characters, the poetry, and the craft. Some of the best writing reads as though the author agonized over every syllable.

Memorability

This is related to creativity, but somewhat different. It hinges a bit more specifically on the author’s ability to clearly convey that creativity. As we’re reading challenge entries, we keep a list of the pieces that catch our eye. When we’re done, we go back over that list of top contenders and choose the winner(s). More often than not, we’ll choose the stories we remember most vividly. In addition to compelling characters and themes, little details can go a long way towards making a piece more memorable. A perfectly crafted sentence. A witty title. A surprising interaction.

Coherence

Your writing should be lucid and coherent. If it’s hard to follow the plot, be it theater or thesis, it’ll be difficult to win. Avoid rambling, over-description, and muddled thoughts. Read your work back to yourself as though you hadn’t written it. Ask yourself, “what am I trying to communicate? Did I do so clearly? Is any of this hard to follow?” If we find ourselves lost or unsure of what’s going on anymore, we usually move along.

Spelling & Grammar

Do not underestimate the importance of proper spelling and grammar. Here at Prose, we respect, if not revere, the King’s English. While we forgive the rogue missing letter or misplaced comma (it happens to the best of us), repeated offenses and gross negligence are to be avoided at all costs. You are of course free to make stylistic choices like omitting capitalization; but unless it’s in the service of some artistic vision it’ll generally be frowned upon.

Linguistic Mastery

This is the x-factor, and the thing that sets great writing apart from good writing. This is proper useage of metaphor, descriptive language, imagery, word choice, alliteration, sentence/paragraph composition, overall flow, finesse, nuance, restraint, and everything in-between. For examples of “linguistic mastery,” please read some of the winning entries from our Challenge of the Week. The winners typically demonstrate a high degree of mastery in their work. To further illustrate what we mean, consider the following two sentences:

“The crows’ calls blared through the quiet like a siren, a dreadful cacophony that rose and fell like the tide, under the chilling, pale light of the full moon.”

“The shrieking of the crows sliced the silence, an unholy symphony beneath a cold, ghostly moon.”

Both are more interesting than “The crows were cawing loudly in the moonlight.” But the first exhibits a sort of scattershot approach, calls upon multiple disjointed metaphors, and betrays a lack of restraint. The second, by contrast, by surgical use of words like “sliced,” “unholy,” and “ghostly,” evokes a certain eeriness. It feels more intentional, and reads more clearly.

These are just a few of the things we look for, and we urge you not to think of them as some sort of “checklist” or “rubric.” Hopefully this has been informative, and will be of aid to you as your craft your entries.

Happy writes,

Prose.