Wow! @BJLECRAE, congratulations on winning my Prose challenge paranormal pen! Your story truly captivated me, especially as a fellow hotelier who has managed a “haunted” hotel. Your accurate portrayal of running a hotel and the whimsical yet intriguing characters made it a delight to read. I want to extend my heartfelt appreciation to all the participants who took part in the challenge. And a special shout-out to @TheWolfeDen for securing second place with her incredibly creative entry. Prose has such incredibly talented writers, and I’m so honored to read you all. Congratulations!!!

Lunch is on me! (Enough for an oversized cinnamon roll) Haha On to the next!! ♥️

When I was a kid I was afraid of Johnny Cash. His music hit like a storm, so that the mere mention of his name was enough to conjure up black clouds and whirling winds in my childish mind. I didn’t know him, had never even met him, but when a girl in my class said she was related to him it was enough to send chills down my back. Country music was what my family tuned-in to in those days, and Johnny Cash was country music (all others, to include the hillbillies before and after, being mere imposters). Such was the living legend of “The Man in Black” down where I am from.

It wasn’t the prison associations he fostered that frightened me, nor his priestly black, frock coats, nor his towering physical presence, nor even the deep bass of his voice, although any of those things could be scary enough in their own rights to a seven year old. It was his aura that unnerved me. It was the reverent way that people I knew and respected spoke about him, as though Johnny Cash was the Resurrection itself, or worse, that he might have actually sprung from that other place that we were not allowed to talk about. Johnny Cash seemed larger than life back in the early 1970’s, and capable of any and everything. For instance, my Memaw would say with certainty to everyone gathered around her television set that Johnny Cash was the very devil himself come up from Memphis, and this as she sang and clapped along to he and Mother Maybelle picking out the Wildwood Flower. How is a child to process such oxymoroneous (I just invented that word) behavior?

Later, when I was in my thirties, my wife and I moved to Hendersonville, Tn., where Johnny and June had a house on the lake. I saw them while shopping at the local Lowe’s one day, she carrying a list as she scurried up and down the aisles, he struggling to keep up on the little electric handicapped cart, his bowed head humble and gray. Any unresolved fear I harbored was lifted at the sight of it, he being so obviously near his end, and yet I felt that same shiver I’d felt when my little classmate, Angie Cash, had told us all so long ago that she was somehow his kin. I never would have believed that day in Lowe’s that Johnny could somehow survive June, and looking back on it I wish he hadn’t. Her death left him even more broken than the turncoat, ”keep up with the times” country music industry had.

Johnny is gone now, and it is still debatable which direction he traveled from Tennessee, north or south, but he left behind a discography of greatness to remember him by; a plethora of songs to remind us in their simplicity and lyric, from rockabilly to gospel, that our time here on Earth is short, just as his was, and that there is something worth considering after… maybe even something to fear.

Just how high is that water, Momma?

Sometimes

I go to write

and there’s a fire

in my brain

i can write

and burn to death

or extinguish the fire

and mourn the unwritten

My friend makes an

important connection

--a call collect---

on our cellular

structure.

Letters shift

across the board . . .

He says the cellphone

is the new Ouija

and I am sure

He's in the know.

I'm texting back in group

several years before, on

the memory of some

interrelationship of

poltergeists

--every time my phone

disappears and reappears

in odd spots of the flat

or blinks menacingly

on the floor at night

spasmatic

I commune with the

spirits believing,

You are out there

light years

hanging

telekinetic

invisible threads

on a battery

tapping

And you say--

we are already dead

from God's perspective.

I am

dying

in the middle

of

cursed

Sahara

from

the

water in the knee

Music is a river. It pushes me along, keeps me afloat, and always shows me something new. Melodies have been a constant in my life.

My mother is a singer. Growing up I would trail after her though weddings or funerals. I would wait in the back, quiet in my seat, watching as her voice brought people to tears. To this day I am in awe of her. I can feel the music pour from her soul, and I feel it in mine.

I began playing the piano in the first grade, the notes flowed through my fingers and into the air. Suddenly, I was the one creating the music I so desperately loved. I will always be in awe of the piano, a strong and timeless vessel of music.

The world has changed so much with the advances of technology. One of my favorite advantages of this new world is our endless access to music. At any moment of the day I can listen to any melody I desire. Songs that move me, I sit with my headphones in and chills pour over me.

So, I think the greatest reverence is music. Music is primal, necessary, joyful, sad, dramatic, full, it is what brings us all together.

But I need to get it out.

2023-05-15 A Letter I Will Never Send My Children

Dear Abacus and Samurai:

Ab, you will be 20 this year. Sami, you are 18. I am so sad and disappointed in how Mother’s Day culminated. I hear you saying that it’s all my fault, and I’ve lost your trust and desire to engage in meaningful discourse. And that for the sake of what values your father has taught you, you only continue to engage me out of obligation but no desire for a relationship past the surface. You don’t value my counsel or presence beyond this farce of filial duty. You will show up as required and allow my presence only if I refrain from trying to peel that delicate top layer and stop trying to heal what has been damaged.

Abacus your rage is a scary combination of your father’s and mine. I hope you age out of it like we did. Verbal discourse was never my forte. I’m sure that’s the biggest reason I am still alone after all these years. Well, maybe not, I have plenty of flaws from which to choose.

It’s an impossible feat though, to move forward when everyone is so unwilling to hear me. If you had any idea what it’s been like to be a single mom these past 15 years, with little to no support except my friends. The things I have gone through and done to protect you, I hope you never know.

I try to explain things, to offer you my perspective, and you tell me I am being defensive. You see a tear or hear the shake of my voice because of the depth of the love I have for you, and the sadness I feel about the way things have turned out, and it’s another brick in the fortress you feel you need to build to shield yourself from my emotions. I cry and I’m being manipulative.

I get angry because you tell your father about what happened and he calls me and tells me not to speak, just to listen to him, that I have nothing of value to say and just have to hear him play “knight in shining armor” to you - to rescue you from my emotions - my hurt, pain, and sadness. And I am playing “the victim card”.

After struggling for 13 years as a single mom, you bring another child into my home. Well, a young adult. Unquestioningly, I take her in. So now, I have four children, except one isn’t actually mine, so I honestly don’t know what to do when there is a conflict there. I’m not her mother. She doesn’t pay rent so I’m not her roommate. And these are exactly the kinds of situations I find so difficult.

Yet I am judged and blamed for not treating her as one of my own. Although based on what you’re telling me, she’s lucky, huh?

I suffer from chronic overextension of my finances, aka poverty, except I never tell you how often I didn’t eat so you could. I never tell you how dire things get trying to keep all the bills paid, because there is enough stress in your lives, and you are my children and I want to protect you. I suffer from seasonal depression, but I don’t want to weigh you down with another worry, so never mention how hard it is for me to get to the other side of each winter alive.

But I’m afraid the thing I protected you from was understanding. From learning empathy. If you had any idea how many times I have almost died, but kept going one more second at a time by thinking of you. And how much it hurts to then be rejected and berated and pummeled over the head with my very human missteps and mistakes. But if I try to say, “My life was hard” I’m guilt-tripping you.

I have given you EVERYTHING I could. I have sacrificed pieces of my soul for you. But I never want you to truly understand. I just want you to love me 1/10th of how much I love you. That’s it.

Love always,

Mom

2023-05-15 The Letters I Will Send My Children

Dear Abacus and Samurai:

I am sorry. I did not realize Abacus was so upset about that exchange.

I hope we can still do our little camping trip with the family this summer, including Kim.

I will not speak of anything which may upset anyone.

Love always,

Mom

Dear Kim:

I am sorry you felt unwelcome in our home. I am a pretty awkward human, and I clearly have not entirely figured out how to adult.

I hope you can forgive my missteps and we can move forward in love.

I never meant to make you feel excluded. Please understand it’s a relic of relationships of my era. It’s clearly a dated practice, but there was an understanding that addressing one half of the couple included both halves automatically. That is the only reason I didn’t think to include you specifically on invites and such.

You are always welcome in my home.

Love,

Mee

Do we Love,

or Hate,

the Distinction?

The honor

of Being---

in the midst

of Something

distinctively

different?

Waves of Emotions--

from elation to lamentation

to a wished for indifference!

Why, Hell yes,

regardless the Slice

we enjoy---

the enjoyment,

of the Enjoyed.

The thing felt

so wholly and

in-effe as an

Affection--

the gap between/

a cloak put on/

as in Artist's

repertoire:

Poof!

You are my Creation,

a solemn portion

of Nothing--

And then-some