I rarely miss anyone enough for it to be painful

I miss time

And spaces

And places

And minutes

But the tangible slips

It is leaky-faucet drips

People are context

People are stillborn

Dead-aching

Unmoving

Unyielding

Stagnant

I miss hands and mouths

I mourn words

I mourn touch

I hold funerals for sunbeams that fell through leaves long since passed

You will find me penning epithets to hungry breath lost on cold air

I will leave flowers where music once rang

I will dig holes 6 ft deep for ghosts

And leave the bodies to rot, carrion-feast

And I will drown weightless in their graves as I stitch myself to phantoms

I've been working overtime with no pay

I'm the only place that she seems to stay

We're supposed to be the ones in control

Yet it seems that someone has reversed the roles

And even if she falls, sleep and sound

I'll still be playing in the background

I've been running, moving, active all night

Just replaying all the wrong things she did that should've been right

Whenever someone tries to engage

She stays trapped, me her unwilling cage

She can't leave and neither can I

We're supposed to be in harmony but that is a lie

The only thing we have that is the same

Is that we only have each other to blame

And the only thing in which we cannot fight

Is that we hope this is a story, one that someone can rewrite

It's been hour or three or five, for all I can count

And all we can consider is the easy way out

But thank goodness for the heart because the only reason her soul remains here

Is because the feeling of fear

When it comes to the unknown

Not knowing what will happen when we're six feet below

I've been running, running all night

No semblance of peace, no peace inside

And when she finally drifts away

To her 'quiet' place

I'm left here running, active, moving

Stuck in this place, I've always been

And the sorrow deep in her soul has started to embed

And the only time I'll be seen

Is when both of us are dead

12 months in a year, 7 days in a week, 24 hours in a day;

Have you ever wish not to live anymore?

How many times did you wish to end your life?

How many times did you take to end it?

It looks like the damage has been done and everybody gave up on you.

The bridges are breaking, your world is crashing.

It feels like you are just surviving, not living: eyes opened, yet still lifeless.

You wished for your own death.

But what if one day everything flipped or turned the way you never expected them to happen?

What if you are involve in a game between life and death?

What if the mastermind that you’ve been looking for is you?

12 lives, 12 missions, 1 game. You are the saviour of your own crime. Rules? Stay alive. Survive. Save their lives.

-

#fiction #horror #paranormal

I can’t sleep.

I flip over and over

again and again

I can’t sleep

its hard.

I close my eyes

But my mind doesn’t stop thinking.

I can’t sleep.

Too much pondering,

troubles

I‘m asleep no more.

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.