I miss you.

I miss your comforting scent,

And your altruistic nature haunts me.

How could I do this to you?

And how strange am I to flee,

Deeper inside my insecurities?

I want to hold you again,

Be enveloped in your arms

Knowing full well what lengths you'd go

To protect what we were.

How beautiful your love,

How miserable my mistrust.

But now it's come undone,

I will never hear you say it.

The only words

I want from your lips,

"I miss you, too."

I miss you

I’m not sorry

For what you said

Or what you did,

For that matter

I just miss you sometimes

When you call,

I miss your voice

And the birds by your house

The barking dogs

And busy days

I just miss you sometimes

When you write,

I miss when we

Would sit in bed all day

Propped up on pillows

And read ourselves to sleep

I just miss you sometimes

When I hear a dog bark,

I am reminded of you

Laughing at Nellie

Cursing at Rusty

And frightened by Tess

I just miss you sometimes

When I hear a car like yours,

I am reminded of you

And days when we would go out

To the store

And get Taco Bell

I just miss you sometimes

When I see Walmart,

I am reminded of you

And going through the

Garden section

Looking for seeds and dirt

I just miss you sometimes

When I see frozen popsicles

Or $5 dollar Twizzler boxes

I am reminded of you

And sitting outside in the sun

Eating and talking

I just miss you sometimes

When I see a book,

No matter what kind,

I am reminded of you

And how you taught me

To love to read

I just miss you sometimes

When I see the Dollar Tree

I am reminded of you

And the first time

That we noticed they sold books -

And for $1, too

I just miss you sometimes

Nevermind that I see these things

That remind me of you

All of the time

I just miss you,

Sometimes

(All of the time)

I just miss you,

Sometimes...

And I guess, I wonder,

If you miss me, too...

Because I miss you

Sometimes

I’ll worry about you,

I’ll want one of your hugs,

I’ll cry over you at night,

I’ll want to talk to you again,

And I’ll miss you, too

But only

Sometimes

(All of the time)

Greetings Fellow Writers and Readers;

We’re excited to announce a couple new features that we’ve just released as of moments ago, along with some exciting things coming soon. But first, some methodical musings on money and the state of web-based businesses.

Internet businesses, like all other businesses, require capital to run. There are server expenses, engineering expenses, legal expenses, marketing expenses, and many other expenses, too expansive to enumerate. Companies like Facebook and Twitter, which claim to be “forever free,” are not. While users may not have to pay for access to their services, somebody does have to pay the bills. In the case of Facebook, it is the advertisers who assume that responsibility. As such, the end users of Facebook are not its customers, the advertisers are. So rather than selling a service to users, Facebook sells its users’ data to advertisers. That business model has always seemed a bit disingenuous to us. While there is nobility in offering a service at no cash cost, it’s inaccurate to claim that it’s “free.” With that in mind, we decided early on to take a two-pronged approach with Prose, seeking the best of both worlds. For those of you who don’t want to pay for access to Prose, you don’t have to. Advertisers cover that cost for you. But for those of you can afford $6/month, who don’t want to see advertisements, we offer Prose Gold.

In our ideal world, all of you would subscribe to Gold. That would allow us to focus all of our effort on doing what we really care about doing - creating the best possible site for social writing and reading - rather than splitting our resources between building what you need and what advertisers need.

One criticism we’ve seen from time to time is that we only care about our Gold subscribers, or that we only care about making more money. This could not be farther from the truth. We care about words and stories, writers and readers, fiction and non-fiction, poetry and Prose.

With that in mind, our latest set of features is designed to add a bit more value to our Gold subscription service, both to sweeten the deal for existing subscribers and perhaps encourage a few more of you to consider subscribing.

New Feature: Fonts

We’ve added the option to change the font of your posts, and change your default “reading font.” When publishing a new post, Gold subscribers will see an option to select a font. This font will not display in feeds, but will display when the full post is opened. We’ve also added a new setting on the account settings (https://theprose.com/settings) page called “reading font.” This will change the default font of all posts to a font of your choosing. Give it a try, let us know what you think! If you have any favorite fonts you’d like to see added, please let us know in the comments below.

New Feature: Platinum

Platinum is a new tier of subscription, intended for our most enthusiastic Prose fans. It offers little more than Gold, other than a badge on your profile, but goes a long ways towards supporting the development and growth of Prose. If you’re currently subscribed to Gold and would like to upgrade, you can do so at https://theprose.com/settings/subscription.

Coming Soon: Dark Theme

We’re currently working on a new “Dark Theme” that will switch all the bright whites on Prose to a darker palette more suitable for nighttime reading. You may have seen similar features on YouTube or the mot recent update to macOS. This feature will be exclusive to Gold and Platinum subscribers.

Coming Soon: Center Justification

We used to allow you to center-justify content you wrote. We removed this during a big site overhaul and just haven’t had time to reinstate the feature. Rest assured, it’ll be back soon.

Coming Soon: Challenge Improvements

We want to drastically improve our challenge system by offering better ways to sort and find challenges, along with enhanced visibility for challenges with attached prizes. We also want to allow challenges with multiple entries.

Coming Soon: Challenge of the Month

November will mark the return of our “Challenge of the Month.” We’ll be offering $100 prizes each month for our favorite entry. We’ll also be submitting all outstanding entries to our publishing partners (we are talking to some very big players).

Improvement: Publishing Options

We’ve simplified the publishing options a bit, improving the UI and removing the distinction between “gold status” and “pricing strategy,” which we thought were a bit redundant.

Improvement: Author Browsing

We’ve added a couple new ways to browse authors at https://theprose.com/explore/people. The "Just Joined" category will display the newest folks to register on Prose. The "Need Followers" category will display people who've been writing a lot, but could use a few more followers. Consider giving them a look!

Bug Fix: Books

We found a bug that prevented new books from being created. That’s been fixed.

Feedback and Suggestions

We recognize it’s been a bit difficult or inconsistent for you to supply us with your feedback. Prose is for you, and we’re making it a priority to make sure we hear and reply to all of your feedback and suggestions. With that in mind, the best way to reach us is to email us at info@theprose.com. You can also publish a post with your feedback if you wish, but make sure to tag @A, @Z, and @Prose in the comments after you do so we don’t miss it. If you think it would be helpful, we can also create a dedicated feedback form where you can submit ideas. If you have any quick suggestions, please feel free to leave them in the comments section on this post.

That’s it for now folks. We hope this sheds some light on what we’ve been working on and where we’re headed. Please let us know what you think!

Prose.

I see your American dream.

Husband- a successful lawyer who works late but can’t wait to run home to his wife.

Wife- a stay at home mom who cooks just as well as she cares, and rushes to that top performing prep school to pick up her daughter.

Daughter- vibrant and innocent… possibly a cheerleader and gets teased by her big brother.

Brother- a football playing champ who goes off to college next year, and will miss his baby brother.

Baby brother- 10 months old and loves laying next to the family dog.

Buster- a golden retriever who likes bacon as a “good boy” treat.

I see the big two story house- open floor plan with a home office upstairs and a man cave downstairs.

I see the pool in the backyard.

the patio, the three step stoop.

the beautifully green front yard.

A happy family. The American dream enclosed by a white picket fence…

But I will challenge your dream, scream the whispers, highlight the darkness..

And I will paint that white picket fence blue.

The parade of soldiers painted the streets with patriotism so wicked, I wished to let my spirit loose alas.

But no, defeat is a solemn man with no remorse , nor care for what remains but gold.

I would knock these jokers down with one blow a hundred times over, if it weren't for the iron binding me to my fate.

I am a bottle of hate, throw me, I am a cup of hard liquor, pass me.

To fight your adversaries after being defeated is impossible. I may be a pessimist, but that's why i'm still here .If only I could see those banners once more, the posters that said "fight on"

The drums, ohhh...the drums. How every pound instructs my heart to scavenge for hope.

Left, Right, Left, Right and so on it went. At that moment I knew we had one more opportunity to thrive in the fields of liberty. Now I don't even care to fantasize. The men on the other side grew in the solar blaze of war. Their grandeur diminished our pride like a foot to a roach.

Passion, the Center Of All Things, Always

Take me beyond your dream of fantasy,

bringing to now the elicit moment,

and never ponder desires rising high.

Better still, this very second;

imagine fires raging,

consuming our needs,

rising, soaring …

Wrapping myself inside you,

around you,

never wanting precious seconds wasted.

Feeling no limits to your soul flying,

your voice gasping, crying out,

demanding, pulling me to you,

where I become you,

you become me,

and we no longer become two people.

Night surrounds the depth of touch,

of the kiss.

Knowing this can last beyond nights to follow,

unencumbered by rules;

we never end.

I’m a mass grave of a million parts, none of them mine. I am a strangled skeleton of angst and scars. And once. I think I was mine. Then they scrawled their ink across my bones. Used as the well to pour their stories into. Used as the paperweight to hold down their pain. The halfway house that keeps them warmed and fed. I’m the undertaker, cleaning the mess out of their insides. I’m the wrists they cut when the darkness insisted it be bled. And I’m the leech that sucked out the emotions that were bursting from their straight jacket bodies. The veins where they stuck their needles, dirty and diseased, once the sharps box had been filled. And the carpet that soaked up the inside of all the broken bottles. I’m the gutter that helps the flood down off the roof just before it jumps. And the ladder they used to climb back to the top. They asked me to carry it all. And suddenly it was mine. Or maybe I was theirs. But once. I think I was mine.