Winter has claimed one more tree. It stands in a courtyard of stone. The branches devoid of leaves, hold instead, hundreds of crows calling all at once. The sun has yet to rise, and I am chilled to the bone by the morning air. I leave my apartment and walk through the square, stopping only to hand a wayward soul a cup of hot tea. I do this each day, hoping the tea will warm his belly, but wondering if I shall one day find him frozen and stiff. He never says a word, just grasps the cup between both of his hands, and blows a shivering breath across the top of the hot liquid. In the evening, when I return, he will be gone. I know not of where he goes, just that he will be sitting in the square each morning. I wonder if he speaks to anyone else. I wonder if he speaks to the crows, contemplating the meaning of their ceaseless calling.

     I walk to the corner to wait for my bus, stretching the hood of my coat up over my head, and pulling the drawstrings tight to escape the chilly air. I have no more thoughts of the man, or the crows, instead focusing my attention on the day ahead, and the many tasks I will need to complete. Stacks of orders on my desk await fulfillment. A new college term begins shortly, and texts will need to get out and shelved before weeks end. I work among books. It’s not a glamorous job, and can in fact be quite dull, but books feel like home to me. It is as though I am surrounded by friends. It’s a comfort, and it pays the bills. I can’t ask for more than that.

     The bus arrives, and I take my usual seat behind the driver with the greasy hair. She’s never well kept, and often smells of stale laundry, but she has a kind gaze, and welcomes me with a smile. Though it's early, the bus is full. Drowsy eyes stare down at phones and laptops, but rarely at each other, as the bus carries each of us to our destinations. My stop is the depository, about a twenty minute ride from where I board. The ride is quiet today, which I do not mind. It is an eerie quiet though, as if everyone has awoken from dark dreams this morning, keeping to themselves, giving sanctuary to their uneasy thoughts.

     I am daydreaming, thinking of Hawthorn, and the ease with which he could turn a phrase. Greatness flowed from his pen, and I am simultaneously envious and awestruck. Lost in my musings, I pull the cord signaling for the next stop. As I depart the bus, I step down and begin placing one foot in front of the other on a cobblestone pathway leading to the depository door. I enter the building and am stopped in my tracks. My heart palpitates, and I am flooded all at once by dreadful thoughts, long overdue. This place among the books, where I have spent my days, has created in me into a horrible creature. Toiling industriously each day, I have been useful, and dutiful; well suited for my position within these walls, morphing into a creature of habit. I have escaped becoming an artist of the beautiful, instead caging myself inside a prison of the practical.

     I feel a grievous aching throughout my bones. I close my eyes, squeezing them tightly shut. The crows feet are clearly and painfully visible around my eyes, as I breath in dead air. I am compelled to flee and can delay no longer. I fear my beating heart will cease its rhythm, leaving me without force to continue on. I think of the man in the stone courtyard, whom I bring a daily tea. It is his marvelous life which fills my imagination; a life animate with raw sensation and organic purpose. It is he I think of as I leave old ways behind, intent on bringing color to my dispirited existence. Walking from the depository, the bright hues of the risen sun glow amber and are full of flame. I am certain of only one thing: there is time still, enough to craft a beautiful life.

Sometimes when I'm alone at night 

when the space sneaks in between

my brain

turns off

and my mind turns on.

And always, it occurs to me, again.

That the only thing that I know in life to be true - 

Is that THIS reality

and everything that comes with it

has no name

has no number

has no locus

has no bounding box

except the ones that we assign

which are nothing more than memories 

inside the walls of a maker's mind.

Fear of

Speaking in public

Driving on highways

Meeting new people

Crowded spaces 

Changes

....yet, in spite of it all

I do it

Even as I shake and stammer

Avoiding eye contact

And appearing weak

In actuality,

I just forced myself

To summon Herculean Strength

To live an average life

Imagine

an echo on pause

Just now reverberating to your ears

A replay found in later years bounced back by

the cave’s hard, tall walls, and hollow holes

filling empty spaces you thought you filled

A shadow of what used to be

an argument, a word, a feeling

born not from current circumstance,

but from events that happened in the past-

A record that begins to skip, missing a beat,

start of a slip, not destruction of the song-

just a misstep, mistake, one that was never

meant to make, and will never happen again

Please let me sing

again

Verdant lungful after lungful of sun kissed country air,

fattened on fecundity and the cycle of nature

finally allays this dark current of fear;

that daily toil’s smudge and grime,

that life’s bruises are tattooed

and carried until death.

They can be held at bay a while,

scraped away, just a while.

Drinking in the haze and hills,

sinking into the cacophony of birdsong,

thinking in the millennia of Suffolk history

our eyes hungrily paint it all,

as Constable had done hereabouts

two hundred years of flow ago.

And so we realign with earth.

We sigh. Reset.

Greetings Prosers! OK, who blinked and made it Tuesday again? Another week has gone by, so that means you get to meet another member of the Prose team. So welcome to this week's Team Tuesday, where we're in the UK again to talk to the one you all know and love. It’s time to find out more about the lady who has the unenviable position of having the buck stop with her. Meet @sammielee46

P: How did you get involved with Prose?

S: I came across Prose whilst searching for writing apps on the App Store, I joined, posted, and immediately fell in love with the platform. I ended up talking to Jeff Stewart about what I did for a living which ended up becoming a phone call with Jeff. The rest, they say, is history. I have been on the Prose team for over a year now and I couldn’t be more proud to work with such a wonderful group of creatives.

P: Why Prose?

S: Prose is a huge leap in the right direction. Prose takes the meaningless nature of social media and gives it purpose, thought, and meaning. Conventional social media has its benefits, but with those benefits there are also huge drawbacks. I was sick of reading what people were eating for breakfast, were drinking whilst they sat idly watching TV; I had enough of reading passive-aggressive, pointed statuses laced with venom, whilst the gossip-mongers circled like vultures around the carcasses of the Serengeti. I wanted to read creativity and raw passion; I wanted to read things that helped me escape that monotony, that furthered my passion for the written word, amongst people that appreciated words and their use. That is where Prose came in. That is why Prose.

P: What is your role?

S: I am the Director of Marketing and Media. I manage the team and the initiatives we bring to your screens. I get stuck in with anything and everything, and love it, too! Copywriting and content creation and curation is a huge part of what I do, along with managing the Prose accounts both in app and across the social spectrum. If you contact Prose via email or DM, it’ll either be me or Paul that you speak to. I spend a lot of time liaising with external agencies, such as actors, literary agencies, editors, publishers, in the hope to further our exposure to the big wide world of literature. I tend to write internal blog pieces, or partner with some of you lovely people to get content for said pieces. I work with Paul on our social media strategies, and scheduling of content. Email newsletters are my bag, too, which I can’t attest to enjoying much, especially when the software doesn’t want to play nicely! I project manage all initiatives and pull all of the pieces together for roll-out. Hosting the team meetings is always fun and it gives us all a chance to speak about the great things, and not so great things, that we have all been doing during the week. I also get the pleasure of liaising with the board members each week and catching them up on everything marketing and media! Proofing and editing, formatting and publishing, you name it, I’ll do it!

P: What are your hobbies and passions?

S: You won’t be surprised when I tell you that my biggest passion is words and how we use them to portray a message or a story. I love to write. Poetry and fiction are my main go to’s. I read voraciously, using the words of others to inspire me and my growth as a writer. Aside from all of that, music plays a huge part of my life, along with my two children and four dogs. Oh, and my ever-annoying cat.

P: What is your favorite literary genre and why?

S: Any type of poetry, depending on my mood. For fiction, psychological thrillers. I love the sick and twisted stuff.

P: What is the world of marketing like?

S: Ever-changing. Challenging. Rewarding. Marketing in the social sphere has its benefits and drawbacks. I’ve been in the marketing industry for eleven years now and it has changed so much since way back when. I love organic growth, and I love how that correlates to the effort you put in. There is always a way to build your brand without having to spend money on advertising. We’ve done it with Prose! After having worked with numerous indie authors, one thing I have come to realise is the world of marketing is often confusing and difficult for writers, and this is something I hope to address to help you all gain huge audiences in the coming months.

P: In a perfect world, what will your life look like five years from now?

S: Prose will be the household name for social media, I will spend my time travelling between the US, the UK and beyond, and our awesome team will be ever-growing, bringing ground-breaking technologies to screens near you!

P: Do you have a favorite author, challenge, post, and/or portal on Prose?

S: This question isn’t fair, but, my favourite Portal would be the Poetry and Free Verse Portal, along with the Stream of Consciousness Portal. That will all change once more residents of HMP Peterborough start submitting their content, you’ll not see me for weeks! Okay, that’s a lie, you’ll still see me as Prose everyday!

P: What is one thing about Prose you’d like to share with its community?

S: How awesome we are, but then you already know that. Jokes aside, I would like everyone to know that we are working hard to make writing and reading on Prose the best experience ever. We have some really exciting updates coming up soon, and I cannot wait for you all to see them! I would also like to let every Proser know what an honour it is to watch them grow as readers and writers, by using the connections they make here, and the technology we provide.

P: Imagine you are in the process of writing a book; what is the title, and brief synopsis?

S: Now, that would be telling. In my almost non-existent spare time, I am writing a novel, I am eleven chapters in. It’s a dark storyline that explores a topic that may be too raw to touch, but, ever the rule breaker, I’m still going there!

P: What’s it like working with an international team?

S: Exceptionally rewarding, often frustrating, eye-opening always. It’s rewarding to think that we can conduct business 4.7k miles away from our colleagues, and actually be closer professionally and personally than what we would be if we shared an office. When we do something good, we do it really bloody good. We celebrate, from one side of the pond to the other, lots of awesomes, dope as fucks, and other american phrases are used. We celebrate as a team, a family. It’s often frustrating because of the time difference. Eight hours is a long time to be ahead. Especially when you catch a tech problem and know the only person who can fix it is asleep. That sucks a lot. The US team also often forget how far ahead we are over here, so cue a lot of late night / early morning talks. Good job, Prose is everything to me! Eye-opening - spelling, sayings, it has all been a learning curve. In fact, if any Proser fancies collaborating on a US vs UK blog piece about just that, shoot me an email or DM.

P: Any closing thoughts?

S: LONG LIVE PROSE, please follow me on Twitter (@sammielee46) and Instagram (@slthomasauthor), and finally, I talk too much! Sorry!

So there you go, lovely Prosers. You know a bit more about the lady at the helm. Go follow and interact if you don't already. More next Tuesday!