Using an earlier attempt at light-hearted fun comparing prose and poetry. I believe it fits here.

Ah, so you write eloquent prose.

Full of idioms and metaphors, I s'pose.

You show but don't tell, oh my!

Yet don't reveal until the end is nigh.

Words you count as you type,

Or write. Are they enough? I hear you gripe.

Flash, Short, Novel, Novella, what-have-you!

Struggle to know where it fits, don't you?

Protagonists, and heroes, and their journeys

You add backstories by the gurneys.

Rising action and climax are fun

But the middle rues if it'll e're be done.

But look at us, the poets and the bards.

Writing verse is its own reward.

There's rhythm, a flow, and there's rhyme

And can be finished, literally, in no time.

Just so we can nail the last one

We, as rhymers, are not yet done

For we can also write it as prose

Now that should rub it in your nose.

Have you ever thought thoughts?

Thoughts about where you can play pretend on reality,

Recast its fabric,

and shape something that never could be?

Were you ever enamored by the potential of fooling others?

Of making them think your false reality was more real than false?

Did you ever perform or act out scenes, feeling like you were also a work of art?

Dance out to melodies,

of false lovers and untrue securities.

Of men and women who love eternally,

and shape something that never could be?

Of creasing a fabric in time,

smoothing out the edges and sitting back to read it all from a single vine.

Where terrible events are all congruent to a synonymous ending,

and characters trials and tribulations have final meaning.

Because when living in reality,

Life has no one sequence of events,

It's an unending travel.

An eternity.

Turns and twists,

Some with meaning.

Some with none.

Unlike the books where men and women have one.

(162 Words Total - 112 Words Over)

We write, we like and we post and we comment, because if we don't--

Then who will?

If we don't write then who will listen to us?

Absolutely no one.

At some point as I started writing, I started to learn that I was tired of never being listened to.

I write because there’s no other choice. To write completes a manifestation of my greatest imagined creations. Not for the weak at heart, writing divulges innermost thoughts and desires, laying wide the door for all to see my weakest – and my strongest - endeavors.

Writing is my dream, unearthed.

was a Time

we wrote on

the mirror

we wrote

wet

behind the ears

after the shower

or dry

with shaving cream

or lipstick smear

or by

sticky note...

to consumer test

our reaction

and resolve

while holding the edge

of the sink

now hands are on

the lap

top

and we write

as we must,

in the mirror.

03.13.2025

Why? challenge @KarenKitchel

I could send my

quirky poetry and prose

to many forums:

contests, websites, who knows.

But my writing go-to place

is a dot com called “theprose.”

I enjoy the posts, comments,

challenges from talented souls.

And the valued feedback is speedy,

making me glad I use theprose.

Along with what’s already been highlighted by previous commenters, I write because it flaunts control in a world with no guarantees. Success or failure is not determined by others or outside-influenced excuses. I write to hold fast to the expressive freedom I crave. Writing gives me empowerment to live fearlessly.

Someone once asked me why I write.

I wondered with careful curiosity.

Taking apart ink that had dripped into my veins.

I looked inside capillaries and saw the needle of words

sequestered deep into my being.

How do you answer a question

when you are not whole without it?

This mode of thought?

This transportation of feeling?

So to answer the question,

I write because

I am without

if I do not.

Without zest,

contentedness,

accountability,

and most of all

expression.

I write because without it,

my feelings balloon

into an ominous creature of doubt.

And there is nothing more fearful

than being in the unknown

a l o n e.

I write because I suck at painting, but I love art.

If I stepped in front of a white canvas and gave it a quick stroke from a paint brush, I'd end up leaving a small streak of some neutral shade of brown across that white canvas. And my attempt at painting the soil in a garden with a shade of taupe from my palette would quickly be mistaken for me using the canvas as toilet paper. To avoid any further self-deprecation, I won't even begin to describe my drawing ability.

I write because I genuinely believe in the beauty and power of perspective and I'm a true believer of the quote "there is always another way". For a singer that lacks a soothing voice, you can always write songs, for a teacher that struggles with public speaking, you can always write textbooks and for an artist that can't paint, you can always write out the pictures through words.

There's no limit to the descriptive power of our languages and the emotions you can evoke from a well order sentence or a perfectly placed punctuation. Words can be just as captivating as pictures and allow you to hold the viewers hand as you walk them down an empty park trail on a summer afternoon while the cool summer breeze hits their skin and you both take in the view of the lake in the distant.

Authors have very often taken me with them on their journeys and never once I have, I stopped to wonder "Why didn't they just paint this?"