I'm not sure yet, but I think our next prompt is going to be about stories. I don't want to just open and close subjects like some crazy round of speed dating. So I think that subjects should interconnect enough so that a common thread can be sewn throughout them, yet remain unoque enough so that someone can still contribute without needing to nestle their idea within some overarching theme.

C has sent in their response to this prompt: "Can you live a fulfilling life without being "in love"? What does that even mean? And is love something we have any control over?" I found this to be a pretty troubling question because love is my favorite thing in the world. The things I love the people I love and being in love are the things that keep me going in life.

Here is Emily's response to the prompt: "Can you live a fulfilling life without being "in love"? What does that even mean? And is love something we have any control over?" I am writing this while my cat Yennefer is lying sleepily next to me in bed. Her eyes squint at me as she purrs under my touch. For those of you who know cats, this is perhaps one of their ways of showing they love you (well, at least as far as feline affection goes.) This tiny being, so trusting of this human who is much larger and heavier than her, and without whose care she wouldn't thrive.

Here is my response to the prompt: "Can you live a fulfilling life without being "in love"? What does that even mean? And is love something we have any control over?" Yes. Love is complex, so I think that I should narrow it down a tad. People tend to separate love into categories. Filial love, platonic love (friendship), romantic love, idealized love, (Love of ideas, of gods) and so on.

Prompt runs until 22nd March 2026 We talk about love constantly. In songs, in films, in the advice we give each other at kitchen tables and over text messages at midnight. And yet, for all the words we pour into it, love remains stubbornly hard to pin down. This week's prompt asks you to sit with three questions that are simpler to say than they are to answer:

Here are some of my favorite cover songs. 🙂 Any suggestions? "One Headlight" John Craigie"Breed" Otep"Los Angeles is Burning" Tim Timebomb"Down by the Water" Ego Likeness"Boys of Summer" Daddy Issues"China in my Hand" Gunship"Powderfinger" Cowboy Junkies"Beat It" Fall Out Boy"Sorrow" Bullitt"Eleanor Rigby" Gunship"Closer" Transient (Sister Issa mix)"Scarecrow" Meg Lee Chin…

Here is C's response to the latest prompt: "Can you truly understand someone whose suffering you've never experienced, or is empathy always a kind of fiction? Besides the fact that I don't think you can ever truly understand someone else, I don't think shared experience is necessary for the empathy you feel towards someone. No matter how many similar experiences you have, how much time you spend together, how many deep conversations you have, you can never truly get inside someone's brain.

Here is Emily's response to the latest prompt: "Can you truly understand someone whose suffering you've never experienced, or is empathy always a kind of fiction?" Empathy is defined as "the ability to understand and share the feelings of another" and it's worth distinguishing this from sympathy, which is simply feeling pity or sorrow for someone else's misfortune. The key word in empathy is understand: to imagine yourself in someone else's place, to feel what they feel, to be there with them in that moment.

Hello all, here is my response to the 2nd prompt. "Can you truly understand someone whose suffering you've never experienced, or is empathy always a kind of fiction?" I don't know if there is a definite link between the experiences you have and how much empathy you feel for others. I know that for me, as time has passed my level of empathy has grown a great deal.

Hello all, here is the next writing prompt for you all. I shall close entries on March 15th. "Can you truly understand someone whose suffering you've never experienced, or is empathy always a kind of fiction?" You can email your responses to roberthiraeth@gmail.com and I shall publish them.

My response to the prompt for this week: "What value do you have that sometimes causes you problems? Has this ever led you to question whether or not you should abandon it or modify it? Why or why not?" I don't think there is a value that I have that gets me in trouble. I wish I was more patient.

Thank you to my subscriber "C" who has written in with their response to the prompt for this week: "What value do you have that sometimes causes you problems? Has this ever led you to question whether or not you should abandon it or modify it? Why or why not?" I find that I value people and relationships to a great extent.

Hello to all of you who have found their way over to this space. Whether you are first time visitors, repeat drop ins or subscribers I am honored that you would take time out of your day to read the untethered ramblings of this dispossessed prisoner. I am launching something new here that I would love to have feedback on and contributors to.

Dear American Movie Classics, (the channel.) "Under Siege 2" is not a classic American movie. Thank you for your time. Sincerely, Robert Hiraeth.

I just wanted to share that the 2024 PEN America Prison Writing Awards Anthology is now avaliable on Amazon. Included is my award winning piece "Courage" which starts on page 21. Thank you to all that have supported my writing journey so far.

I have been developing a deeply intimate relationship with the music of Gunship. For a while I had veered into the gloom drenched halls of Doom Metal. There I sat, head bowed to the slow drop C fuzz of heavy electric bass, each note an inevitable step towards the void through a fog of funereal sighs. "Yes, cruel world!" I moaned, too consumed with the uselessness of tears to weep, "I know that all is sound and fury (and 26 minute long songs about Edgar Allen Poe) and in the end it means nothing, nothing at all!"

I spent Christmas day watching a marathon of Anthony Bourdain specials. An imperfect, broken hero of mine. He took his own life and the world is poorer for it. I don't judge him for his final action, any more than I would judge any one person for any one action in the vast tapestry of their lives. That's what life is, you know.

12-10-25., 9:20 at night… Missing you all already. Life may not be fair, but we aren't under any obligation to help make it that way. All of my love and friendship to the Whitties that, in every conversation and every moment shared these last few months, brought light and solidarity to me in a very dark, very cold place. Especially to Kyle, Lilli, Sophia, Sebastian and Zack.

What's your favorite cartoon? Favorite cartoon? That would have to be "Home Movies". Loren Bouchard's early project about three kids and the films they make with the help of some strange friends and their VHS camcorder. Early appearance of H Jon Benjamin who voices Coach McGuirk, a criminally irresponsible soccer coach. It took a few episodes for it to grow on me, but now there isn't a cartoon I have seen before or since that makes me feel as good as one 15 minute episode of that show. Try it, let me know what you think at Roberthiraeth.com. 🙂

I started writing about all of my friends and brothers that I've lost over the last couple of years, just from this small three unit space. The list itself is too long, and I refuse to just put names into the ether without telling the world a little about each one. Alex was the latest. Three days ago. He lived in prison most of his young life.

What's something you believe everyone should know. That your life has meaning. That it's NOT some insignificant little nothing within the vastness of an unfathomable cosmos. Value isn't assigned to things that are common. Deep and unconditional love isn't valued because it happens every day to everyone all of the time. I saw a hummingbird in the garden the other day.

faith to believethere is goodnessis enoughfor tonight.

The sun has set.Behind mountains green and black slopes crisped with silver snow.Once mighty now the blue bows down,dies,decays.From its bones the gloaming glows bruised and bloody hued. It's a miracle, but they don't notice. Wrapped 'round a fire built high for warmth.Smokey musk stings eyes alight with flames whilelaughter rides the wind and winds through pines the…

This piece of writing placed second in the 2024 PEN America Prison Writing Awards. Courage I don't remember the Mexican kid's name anymore but I do remember his age which was 18. He looked young, younger than 18 although he carried himself like a man much older. Let me clarify, he was young and stupid and full of bad decisions but his stupidity was that of the young and his bad decisions were of that as well.

When the gulfs between you and everything else become absolute and the terrors of the inconsequential are unsheathed, silly little things. here is how it should be. how it once was. perhaps how it could be, could have been. When it ends will it be enough to have known what was possible? It will have to be It will have to be. silly little things This poem was published in the PEN America Zine - Verse Among Us

How do you celebrate holidays? I don't. Not anymore. When you are incarcerated, holidays aren't provided by a calendar. They are wrenched out of the jaws of a numbing monotony heavy with the potential for violence. Some people celebrate holidays when they happen. Many do not. Did Sisyphus get a birthday when he got to the top of his hill? Laughing, middle finger extended towards the unfeeling infinite, he just marched back on down that mountain.

"We're all born naked." This is a common phrase uttered by people of all stripes for a variety of reasons. It is certainly a common mantra for all nudists, some hippies, and all nude hippies. I understand the argument being made: that we come wide-eyed and naked into the world, and society clothes us in shame and skinny jeans (although not enough shame in the case of skinny jeans).

What book could you read over and over again? A book I could read again and again..? Ursula K Le Guin's "The Dispossessed". My favorite writer at the height of her powers. This book not only helped me better understand the flaws within my own anarchist philosophy (and therefore strengthening it) but is so beautifully written. Not just a book about an anarchist society, but a tale about love, alienation, friendship, duty, freedom, suffering, revolution, and the journeys that bring us far afield but bend, inexorably, towards home.

Daily writing prompt What's a secret skill or ability you have or wish you had? View all responses There's the obvious, supernatural abilities and the like, but to keep it grounded somewhat, I think the ability I want the most is the ability to feel safe. There were only the briefest moments in my life that I lived free from fear, and because of that, I've made one bad decision after another.

Who is the most confident person you know? I spent some time thinking about who the most confident person I know might be, then I spent some time wondering why I spent any time on it at all. I know a lot of people, almost all of them quite villainous, and although they are fascinating in their own right after so many years that archetype has become stale.

Are you superstitious? Am I superstitious? Sometimes. It's nice to believe that I have control over the events in my life I have no control over. It's probably not true, but when I watch Dr. Who I don't spend the whole time thinking about how everything in it that purports to be alien or future tech is just set pieces made of Styrofoam and spray painted different colors.

Where would you go on a shopping spree? I have no idea how to answer this. I mean, I know HOW to answer it, but I don't know where to start. The addict in me wants to say a pharmacy. 😛 I will resist this and choose instead to decline. Give me a hill inside the Kanza prairie in Kansas during an electrical storm.

What is the last thing you learned? What was the last thing you learned? I don't know about the last thing I learned…I mean it isn't interesting or important, at least in light of the last big piece of news I had. My friend Jasmine took her life. It's only one of eight we've lost this way in the last couple of years, but she was the one that really hurt.

What experiences in life helped you grow the most? What experiences helped me to grow the most? This is a really hard question. I mean, I've spent half my life in one institution or another and 7 years total in isolation. There comes a point when you've lost everything, and I mean you could be sitting in a house somewhere on a quiet street or an alley in the Tenderloin.

Do you believe in fate/destiny? Maybe. I am a determinist, which is to say I don't believe in free will, but I am also not crazy enough to think too much about it. It's fun to explore this concept outside the context of a life that requires action. But you have to leave it there. There's a reason we had to evolve a sense of free will.

Describe a phase in life that was difficult to say goodbye to. I think the phase of my life that was the most difficult to let go of was the one where I thought of myself as a good human being. It's impressive the amount of harm you can cause others when you convince yourself that you are only a good person making mistakes that are anathema to your nature.

If you could be someone else for a day, who would you be, and why? If I could be a person for a day, I would be Elon Musk. I would choose a weekday so financial institutions would be open. I would give every cent I owned to every progressive resistance movement in America, if possible. Then I would get on one of my (admittedly awesome) rockets and, at the last minute before I returned to the body of the person I am now, announce to the world via every social media platform active today, the following:

What is your favorite drink? my favorite drink...clean cold water on a hot day after working outside in the sun. It is more delicious than anything else....second place goes to anything caffeine in the morning. Third...wine in the company of friends...

Are you patriotic? What does being patriotic mean to you? Patriotism's only purpose seems to be offsetting the crimes committed in its own name. As an American, I have witnessed how this so-called love of country has been wielded to silence and oppress people. At its heart, patriotism is like many vestigial evolutionary mechanisms that persist in modern times. It has metastasized into something ugly and self-defeating.

Write about your dream home. No question about it - my dream home would be Howl's moving castle from the Miyazaki film of the same name. A home that can travel from place to place. A home that has a door that can become the door of a nondescript building in a city while the house itself is climbing a mountain in Colorado, or perched beside a loch in Scotland.

You get some great, amazingly fantastic news. What’s the first thing you do? news...the obvious question is, "What is the news?" I mean, without that information...hmmm... OK, sorted, I'll change the prompt. "You have just received an amazing bit of news! Pick from the following: There is absolute proof of life after death You have been hired to do work that you enjoy so much that you would do it for free. Everyone you have hurt has forgiven you Nobody's heart was broken today."

What's your favorite candy? My favorite candy? I'm not a big fan of candy (or prompts that read like questions a TMZ reporter asks pop star during an interview on Halloween) But anyway.... Hershey's Kisses.. Love the name, "Kisses", my favorite of the many clever names companies give candies. In a cataloque filled with "Whatchamacallit"s and "Jawbreakers", Starbursts" and "Twizzlers", the Hershey's Kiss stands out.