You can feel it in your bones. Deep inside you, they are forming groups, building strength - you can feel their numbers growing. You can hear the grind of teeth and chatter. Grab a knife, try to carve it out. They are too fast for you. They hide so easily.
If you don't do something soon, they will control you. You will be a puppet, and you won't even know the difference. Feel them scrambling, claws scraping against bone, severing tendons bit by bit. You will soon fall apart, but not if you poison them. Look under the sink. Grab anything. The worse it tastes, the better.
Starving them won't work. They don't feed on flesh, they feed on panic. Your terror energizes them. Your disgust gives them purpose. You can't drink it away. You can't smoke it up.
It's a little like drowning. Your thoughts will escalate. Your heart will pound, you will feel it in your ears. You will try to channel the fear and fail. Drowning is easy. It just means giving up.
You will give up. No doubt. No one can live like this for long. You'll burn them, slash them, try to sleep them away, but they are always waiting, hungry.
When you die, they will leave you. Corpses don't feel fear. Don't fret. Now you know how the planet feels, stolidly waiting for its own demise.
This is really powerful. It can be about many different things. The way fear can destroy, the fear of finding a voice. I can't pick out any favourite bits cos it's all good. This bit stands out: 'You will be a puppet, and you won't even know the difference.'
ReplyDeleteVickie's 100% correct about everything she said above. This is both complete and without weakness as a piece of writing and I'm in awe of your skills as a writer. My voices are doubts, or at least that's how they begin, but then they become embodied as birds, growing larger as they develop until they become carrion, pecking away at your confidence and the little peace you have in your mind.
ReplyDeleteSometimes your stories make me suspect you need to follow them up with a call to a suicide helpline. This is one of them.
ReplyDeleteGrief
ReplyDeleteIn spaces,
we tread spaces,
in circles winding,
forever spiralling,
this never ending,
this expanse of heart.
The emptying,
so severed links,
grey gusts twisting
from broken hands,
as we sink lower
into still blue water,
numbers marking how
out of depth we seem,
sliding in this endless
fade into the deep,
into the ever,
this dark arc rising
in silent speech
to greet us.
Vickie Johnstone - Google account not showing
There is a galloping, rolling rhythm here that works so well. It established itself in my mind instantly, and that rarely happens to me with poetry.
Delete(Writing as Mark A Morris)
ReplyDeleteI looked into the Void and the Void looked back.
And then we had a pleasant little chat.
It was mostly one-sided, the Void being generally quiet, but we got along well together. We even discussed our future plans, the Void remaining enigmatic for the most part.
I settled down and drank of cup of tea. I’d brought a filled thermos with me, inner space being limited on its facilities. The Void remained impassive, its features inscrutable at the best of times, its outwardly visible face a uniform black. I offered it a sandwich that I’d brought.
It gulped it down quickly, and yawned, wanting more.
We discussed local politics, economics, and the weather. It seemed uninterested in the first two and had only a passing knowledge of the last. It had experience of coldness and the exchanging of energies, although these were all limited; infinity being an absolute and invariable. We chatted about the future of the world – the Void was intrigued about that, its immaterial fingers twitching.
I told it about you, and it remembered your name.
It sends its best wishes - it's still waiting for your call.
Wow, this one is SO cool. I love it. I cracked up when the void got the sandwich. You should submit this to a flash contest.
Delete