Weekly Short Stories Contest and Company! discussion

This poem, meant to be spoken out loud, was written after the death of one of my friends as a means to cope.


ON THE WATER’S EDGE, THE BITTERSWEET TASTE:

On the precipice of the between
An never-ending cycle
Knee-deep in this river
We lean further, further
Breaking the tide with our lips
The bittersweet water burning
With this taste of tears
It burns
It does not wash, it does not heal

This is not a river, it's liquid flame
It tears and rips, it scalds and scars
A creature unknown, a source of hellfire
It transforms within, wild and beating at us, knowing nothing but the purest hate for our kin
Like we are a stranger invading them instead of the hapless victim

On the other side of the shore, it stares at us, waiting
Waiting...waiting
Hands held out and not clenched
God, why are they not clenched?
It is mindless

And maybe we misunderstood it?
Maybe that burning is not hell but a haven to let us know we are here
But it's easier the other way, it's easier to think of it as an it, an other, a thing
A creature who wishes to take out our hearts while we are still using them as they obliterate people we vowed those hearts to

We do not want it to still live

And so we scream like our words hold physical weight, like they are a weapon we sharpened from birth upon our tongues with talent and skill passed down to us like an heirloom
But the river monster does not blink and with its mutilated claw it does something to us we cannot understand in the moment as we drown trying to chase it still screaming at the top of our lungs

We cannot hear it
The world is a muted stage
Our words do not reach it
It just is, it just is
It is a force that cannot be stopped
You cannot kill death

But as it leaves us with that bright pure soul cradled like a child in its arms, we finally feel
And the rage fades like a dream we do not wish to wake from.

This little poem is untitled but was about a recent massive fallout with people I thought were my friends; they were just using me.


I can’t see what is in front of me
A tight grip unseen
Trying to speak
I open my mouth
No sound comes out
It is trapped
Caught
Defiled