Prose

Solstice
During the ritual there was a reading of 35,000 syllables, taking seven hours to pass. Over its course, the vacant, high-wire star grew achingly thin, until at last the lynching thread snapped and the orb sank like a chore into the ocean. The sky above looked as if we stood in the heart of an heirloom, and thinking it would collapse in on itself at any moment, the man in the moon turned to bury his eyes into what bent elbow of space he could find, refusing to witness our ruin. The eclipse fell on the circumcision of two local boys. What could we do but wince at their cries and press our bodies together with the weight of wet clay? We traced our footsteps back to camp in the nocturne of equatorial jungle. Along the way syncopating each other’s breath until we collapsed over two bound shapes in the dark, a Sumatran tiger and his tigress. We were honored as it happened, to have met such sought creatures, even in their deaths, and stood over them like candles of ice waiting for the rot.
By Sean Balogh10 months ago in Poets
A Poets Introduction
Hello Vocal Media, it’s nice to be here—all the stories and the challenges are cool. I read and write poetry and there is plenty to read here. I’ve been writing poetry for about five maybe six years now. I will share many poems here—also share some of my favorite books and authors of poetry.
By Gerry Thibeault10 months ago in Poets
The Man Who Lived Inside His Words
In the oldest part of the city, where broken streetlights flickered like tired stars and silence felt heavier than noise, there lived a young poet named Ayaan. His world was small—one narrow room with peeling paint, a wooden table, and a window that looked down at a restless street. But inside that small room existed entire universes, created by ink, pain, and unspoken emotions.
By Anas Khan10 months ago in Poets
you used to call me blaze
i wish you'd use me as a match, strike me against all the rough surfaces, sandpaper, the sidewalk, your own edges. you used to call me blaze,
By D10 months ago in Poets
Zooming Out on Life
Life is a collection of imperfect movements… A series of squiggly lines, Zig zags, And blobs of color. From up close we can see all the cracks and crevices
By T.L. Amber10 months ago in Poets
The Celtic Cross That Carried the Roses
Every flame begins with a rupture. Every rose blooms from a fracture. This is not a ritual of control, but a ceremony of creation.
By Vicki Lawana Trusselli 11 months ago in Poets
Tender Reverie
Light gathers on the wall as if the day itself is whispering a secret. A small girl stands barefoot on the wooden floor, her dress breathing around her like a soft cloud, and above her rises a silhouette too tall to belong to her world. The shadow-woman, carved in gold and dusk, leans toward her with hair that moves like time caught in mid-shiver.
By Aarsh Malik11 months ago in Poets
The Fledgling's Flight (A Poem)
Fledgling’s Flight Our fledgling flew the coop early one January So young and fresh from school His offer not giving us time to grieve
By Alexandra Grant11 months ago in Poets
Quiet Work of Becoming
I used to believe that becoming a writer would arrive with a sound—trumpets, perhaps, or at least a clean click, like a lock finally turning. I imagined a day when the doubt would lift its coat from the back of my chair and leave the room for good. Instead, it stayed. It learned my habits. It brewed coffee. It read over my shoulder. Most mornings, I write anyway. The page does not care who you are. It does not remember yesterday’s sentences or promise tomorrow’s clarity. It only waits, pale and wide as a winter field, asking what you will plant today. Some days I bring seeds. Some days I bring excuses. The page accepts both and offers no applause. There are writers who speak of inspiration as if it were a weather pattern—storms rolling in, lightning cracking open the sky. My inspiration is quieter. It arrives like dust, settling on everything while I’m not looking. It gathers in the corners of conversations overheard on buses, in the way a stranger’s hands tremble while counting coins, in the long pause before someone answers a question they already know the truth of. I carry these moments home in my pockets. Later, I empty them onto the desk and pretend I know what I’m doing. I have written in kitchens after midnight, when the refrigerator hum becomes a metronome and the house finally stops asking things of me. I have written in libraries where the silence feels earned, like a cathedral built from patience. I have written on my phone in grocery lines, the sentences bruised and misspelled but alive. The myth of the perfect conditions dissolves quickly when you realize how little time you’re willing to wait. There is a particular ache that comes with caring deeply about words. You feel it when a sentence almost says the thing but stops short, like a hand hovering inches above a door it won’t knock on. You feel it when you reread your work and hear echoes of voices that are not yet your own. You feel it when praise arrives and somehow misses you entirely, sliding off the surface because it cannot touch the doubt beneath. Still, there are moments—small, electric—when a line lands just right. When the metaphor opens instead of closes. When the rhythm carries you forward and you forget, briefly, to be afraid. These moments are not grand enough to brag about, but they are sufficient. They are bread. They keep you alive. I used to think that writing was about saying something new. Now I think it is about saying something true in a way that does not flinch. Truth is not loud. It does not need to convince. It simply stands there, waiting to see if you will stay. Sometimes, the work is only showing up. Sitting with the unfinished paragraph. Allowing the sentence to be ugly before it becomes honest. Accepting that revision is not failure, but a conversation with your past self—one who tried, imperfectly, to reach the same horizon. There are days I read poems written by strangers and feel my chest open. I do not envy them. I feel less alone. Their words become proof that attention still matters, that someone else is also listening carefully to the world as it passes through them. This, more than recognition or ranking, feels like the point. If there is a secret, it is this: the life of the writer is mostly invisible labor. It is choosing the page when no one is watching. It is trusting that the quiet accumulation of sentences will one day resemble a voice. It is forgiving yourself for the drafts that fail and returning, stubbornly, to the desk. I am not finished. I hope never to be. The work continues because I continue, because the world continues offering itself in fragments and whispers, because somewhere a reader will recognize their own private thought in a line I nearly deleted. So I write. Not because I am certain. Not because I am fearless. I write because becoming is a verb, and verbs demand motion. And tomorrow, when the page waits again, I will meet it—empty-handed or full, it hardly matters—and begin the quiet work once more.
By Luna Vani11 months ago in Poets
Upside-down Mouse
“The Broken Finger Story is not just about pain it is the comic checkpoint that softened the gloom. What started as a rupture turned into sovereign wit, reframing doom into laughter. I have now recorded it in my personal archive as a ceremony, a reminder that even pauses can ignite new passion.
By Vicki Lawana Trusselli 11 months ago in Poets
making gardens out of silence
No words come from my mouth And still, something is growing Making gardens out of silence Planting, without knowing Thoughts are blooming
By Gail Fredricks11 months ago in Poets
Yellow. Honorable Mention in The Last Flame Challenge.
I went to my thesaurus to find a word, a word I could use in place of yellow. I was trying to write a poem without using the letter ‘e.’
By Gerry Thibeault11 months ago in Poets