Poem Eight

And then everything
Was still and silent;
Land pressed up beneath me,
Solid and unmoving;

I was sitting before a home,
Covered in ivy;
Covered in teeth and
Emitting a golden light;

It was the day of my wedding,
That was this evening;
He was standing at the door,
Dressed for a ceremony;

Dressed up and weeping,
The light shined across his tears;
The skies swayed around
Where I perched;

Each tooth shone in the light,
Glimmering with human origin;
I knew that he was pleading to
Many gods, wondering, begging;

Where has she gone?
Where have they taken her?
Would he forgive me if I told him
Of my self-made purgatory?

But something tore itself from the
Soft nature of this scene,
Something that should belong
In the bottom of the sea;

A figure appeared behind him,
Sneaking, hunting;
My step-mother slipped
Beside him, whispering;

Something was wrong,
He was in danger;
But I wished I existed in order to
Comfort and protect him;

I was told I was only a ghost,
Without any say in my loves world anymore;
I wouldn't be able to be spotted in this
Din, or in any others, I was told;

My step-mother pressed closer,
Trying to entice the distraught male;
She purred that I would want him
To stop his grieving;

And the light flickered on this
Gentle, predatory scene;
A scream flowed across the
Waters below the cliffs;

The whore felt the growing
Tension surface and toil;
She had felt it before she had
Left her secure little room;

Solid ground cracked and fissured,
Breaking away from the mainland;
It plummetted into the swirl and
Churn below, shortening the land;

The woman's doom was on my mind,
And my anger gave the ocean a chime;
I heard the waves calling to
Me, wanting me back;

The scene before me changed into
Something that was morbid and dark;
A lonely monitor beeped in the
Silence of a medical room;

I was in the bed, unmoving, barely
Alive inside that weakened body;
My self-constructed doom,
An escape from physical purgatory;

Just watching myself,
Without a visitor in sight
Sparked my rage; A feeling that
Surpassed my need to be alone;

But the scene tore itself from my eyes,
Shattering around me;
Falling to pieces; Just like that
Time of late night calling;

Glass and painted frames collapsed
At my feet, splintering, collapsing;
Before the roar of water slammed down
From above, dragging me back down;

And I was spiralling out of control,
Central focus lost in the rush;
No way to tell which way was up,
Air pressed from lungs;

Tears mixed with ocean streams and
Hands latched onto horizon dreams;
I didn't pass another in the churn
As I fought and kicked to be free;

The current invaded my chest,
Drowning me into submission;
Whispers echoed in watery
Ears, all those years ago;

That I couldn't go back to him;
That I couldn't speak to him;
My stitched wings pained me to try and
Fight the iron fist of pressure;

With the book of words and ink swirling off
Away from my reaching hands,
The spectrum of upper-layer
Colors was filtered by blood;

The waters were clouded and
Shrouded in the spreading mess,
Attracting the swimming beasts
That mimicked barking sharks;

My fight died, and I was left to
Drift on my own to the end;
To the bottom of the sea where
I will continue to spend my days;

My nights; Sinking and drifting,
And dying and thinking,
Just thinking and thinking,
And drifting and crying;

Silence; Not even the defiance of
My mind pulsed forward;
No images of my love, of that
Beastly whore and her intentions;

That comatose body would be
In the ground soon enough;
And then my wings will properly heal;
So I drift with the other ranks;

I could be like a seel
Swimming through the sea;
I was told I could do as I liked
Once I was finally passed;

Anything but go back to the faces
That I had known in the living world;

Back to where I was before, sitting on the
Shifting, burning ocean floor;
I felt the purgatory shift inside my chest,
Press against the hope that hid there;

The skin that kept me together,
Kept and tied with muscle and feather,
Like I was some bundle of unpure
Feathers of a flock of doves;

In the pressurized haze of bloody water,
One image seemed to dock in my head;

It showed my love, finally
Broken after my passing;
And she would be waiting, waiting to
Comfort him into her bed;

With a strike of pain, I felt one of my
Wings slice through the water;
It was a simple twitch of aggitation,
But it was enough to tell me all;

But just as I sensed my rebellion,
As did the other winged ones;
The hands dragged me into
Another space of existance;

And, soon enough, I was standing
Before a few of them;
I was bare to them, an innocent
Not yet claimed by their hand;

When they spoke to me, I could only
Understand a handful of the language;
But these things were just different
Ranks of humans that had passed;

But they were alien in their ways; The things
They tried to teach me were unjust;
My sodden wings hung heavily and painfully
From my back, trickling blood;

They were faceless, clothed, and
Foreign; I did not trust them;
I told them this as I spread my feathers and
Violently shook off showers of water;

The spraying droplets splattered into the
Darkness, and onto their uniforms;
I could hear the ocean still
Gurgling in my mind, and in my lungs;

The room at the hospital
Flashed before my eyes;
He was already there, sitting near my
Bed, and she was no where

And I was no where; And he never
Knew that the ocean existed;
I tell the other Winged that I'm
Going back to see my love;

They react with threats, telling me that
I will not be welcomed back;
They said that I would not get that
Pair of wings again, and I knew they were wrong;

I told them that I go back to him,
My love, that man that kept me alive;
And, when I finally decided to die again,
I would get these wings back and others;

I spread my feathers, posing a challenge for them;
A challenge they could not accept;
Each moment standing before them
Weathers me, deadens me;

Each second in their presense whispers
For me to sleep, to rest, to give in;
I was already dead, why go through the trouble
Of living when I could get a new chance?

Living twice would put my likely death
On the rise, it would be filled with paranoia;
I would be in psychosis counting sheep and
Refusing to risk everything, even get out of bed;

Why not just stay where I was? Stuck in the sea
Without anywhere to officially be?
And would I have somehow ruined my
Chances of a good post-life existence?

But being trapped beneath the waves,
When there was an opportunity that stood;
It would be crippling and irreversable,
Full of what-ifs and lost chances;

So I looked the other Winged straight on,
And my thoughts turned to only one thing:
Even if my love were to die within minutes
Of me returning, I would still exist;

Even if I was to suffer a permanent death as
Soon as I was returned, I would still exist;
Because existing below the skin of the ocean
Was withering and becoming cold;

The faceless one's each said that I would
Not be going back to the living,
I would be returning to my waves
In order to wait out my healing;

But the feeling of my mind, and
The thoughts of my heart reeling
Had I asked any of them for permission
For my upcoming expedition?

With the clouds of confusion rolling away,
I turn to leave without further sway;
I was not completely in their ranks,
And that was thanks to my slow dying;

Being below in such colorless darkness
Was decaying my spirit;
And if the Winged wanted any sort of use
For me afterward, why give me abuse?

I walked out of purgatory that day, and I was not
Followed, and I was not warned further;
I walked without stopping until I reached the
Shadowy docks with their glimmering ships,

Which appeared from the nothingness;
And I didn't stop until I stood on the tallest one;
Other faceless nothings carried empty luggage,
Those who'd never be able to leave;

Their wings were phantoms that trailed shadow
Behind their heifer monstrosities;
Each one was raceless and genderless,
Weeping sorrow into glasses to douse their throats;

The ships were a dangerous place, it was a place
Where the keepings and calls rang out;
Questions and requests and demands and anger;
So much anger lived in their shadows;

They all wanted off the ship, those who were already
Dead and refused to grip their reality;
The Winged have not claimed them, and likely
Never will, if the shadows anger does not still;

But I boarded the largest of these ships without fail,
And took up a spot beside a metal rail
Gales of air tore across the deck, chilling flesh
And rustling feathers; Heifers growled;

And it was at this moment that I found my mistake;
The unattended hospital room; My scheduled doom.