Dearest Writers:

Over the past 12 months, members of our community have expressed their desire to publish a book but lack of traction with agents or publishers. Our mission is to see members of our community succeed and fulfill their dreams of becoming published authors.

Enter, The Prose Press:

https://theprose.com/p/press

In collaboration with one of the fastest-growing educational companies, we started The Prose Press to give up-and-coming authors the platform to successfully write and publish their work.

Over the next few months, we will be inviting aspiring authors to submit their work and start their publishing journey with The Prose Press and share key pieces of their journey with you – their learnings, conversations, milestones, and excerpts.

If you are interested in turning your working manuscript into a real book, reach out to us.

Thank you to our supporters and community members for making this possible.

https://theprose.com/p/press

Cheers,

Prose.

I start with my eyes

I reassure myself that I am safe

in that stare, in that state,

I can trust what I see

and it’s all there. I am safe

with myself

as myself

In this moment

I see the line across my stomach

where the top half settles on the bottom

I remind myself that I am made

of sweet treats, green leaves,

juicy, crunchy, savory things

I see my breasts tremble,

see my nipples sprawl, totally at ease

I resist the urge to tease

I take a deep breath in

and rely on my beauty. Not what others have

told me is beautiful. This is supreme being

This is me.

This is who I have become

in times of struggle, but beyond the need

to be

Any way at all.

My jaw softens naturally

My thighs roll out

I see the legs that have carried me

Through the mud and the storms and the trees

I see my sex, drooping pink, tender to the touch

So free

To exact my body

To be exactly here, in this precious space

Myself

I will never exist somewhere else

Not on the scale, nor the mirror.

I am here.

Photo by Inga Gezalian on Unsplash

#selflove #beauty #reflection

I think we romanticize

the mentally ill

but have you ever

gone five days

without taking a shower

or entered a room

and thought about how

it wouldn't take much

to never come out

maybe we don't though

and Sylvia Plath is at most

quirky for writing about Daddy

and sticking her head

into fumes that normally cook food

I think we all need a touch

of madness to stay alive

but damn if it doesn't

hurt sometimes

I got another rejection this morning. Rejections are fine, truly; whenever you send a piece of writing to a publication, a rejection is the expected outcome, and that’s the math of it. I once heard thirdhand of a writer who said she aims to receive a hundred rejections per year, which helped me grasp how this all works. I’ve been fortunate enough to have some pieces accepted for publication, but there will not be some magical “made it” point where my quill develops a Midas touch; each time I see a message from a journal, I say the word “rejected” before I open it, bracing and grounding myself. Rejections are the norm and the price.

That being said, they suck.

As planned, I still sat down to write this morning. I’m a teacher on his last summer day before reporting for work tomorrow; my daughters are with grandparents and my wife is at work, so I need to make some literary hay while the sun shines. The rejection was a cloud, though. It was kindly phrased: “This one didn’t quite feel like a match for us, so we’re going to pass this time, but we enjoyed the read. The ______ made me smile.” It was a nice thing to say and a wholly expected outcome, and yet…

I contemplated killing an hour or so with Netflix.

Instead, I read a few pieces on Prose. @Huckleberry_Hoo made me laugh. @InLoveWithWords made me sad. @AlisonAudrey shared her writer’s dream. And by the time I had read their pieces, language felt vibrant again. I pulled up this lovely challenge by @TheWolfeDen, and I wrote.

I joined Prose in October 2019 because I wanted to write again and needed some help getting unstuck. I have kept using Prose through this morning because I wanted to write again and needed some help getting unstuck.

My thanks, everybody.

Greetings fellow readers and writers. It’s been some time since we last updated Prose. Today we’re excited to provide a peek behind the curtains and give you a glimpse of what we’ve been working on. 

Over the years, as we’ve added features and functionality to Prose, the app and its codebase have become increasingly unwieldy. As such, we decided to reimagine and rebuild Prose from the ground up. It’s still the same site you know and love, insofar as a Toyota Camry is just as much a car as a Porsche 911. 

We’ll have more exciting announcements in the weeks to come; but for now we hope you’ll give the new site a test drive and let us know what you think. You will find the next chapter at beta.theprose.com and we encourage you to share your thoughts at info@theprose.com.

I want to go somewhere and be desolate.

Out here, in the country

Isn’t far enough.

I need to be a stray in a city,

Alone in an empty crowded place

Like a phantom limb,

To do my best work.

We are fighting each other

Over our own seclusion;

So desperate for attention

We jockey for position

At the speed of rattlesnakes.

Venomous creatures live alone.

We want to be seen, and not touched.

We want to be heard, but not answered.

We want the esteem

Of being well-versed in literature,

But this era is too busy

For busy poetry.

We want something for nothing;

We want it immediately,

And we want it to change our lives.

It’s Vegas Baby!

And we’re all trying to win big

In a desert.

God damned the desert.

Just about anyone can be seen from the clouds

On a salt flat so shallow.

Now every washed-up prom queen gets to feel accomplished.

This place,

Is not meant to support new life.

Its purpose is to decompose

Every one-hit wonder and regurgitate.

Repackage.

Resell.

Feed you like a baby bird.

I’ve been doing this a long time.

By now, I don’t expect anyone to give a shit.

But I have no right,

It’s hard to imagine Neal Cassady at the bar

Punching notes into a smartphone;

Or what Jack’s Instagram page would look like.

I doubt we’d ever know.

He wasn’t the type of Catholic to modernize.

And he sure as Hell

Wasn’t the type of Buddhist

to profess enlightenment on the internet.

#poetry #prose #nealcassady #jackkerouac #selfieculture #disassociation #alienation #vanity #society #technology