Denied A Simpler Fate

Posted on December 13, 2019 by

52 Comments

dipping her toe first into the surface of the deep pool of black on black ink, she shed her robe

stood momentarily shivering in the cool forest air, bright moonlight dappled across pale, pale skin and long tan curls

before closing her tear-filled eyes spreading her arms wide, she fell forward and released her last grasp on this world

it felt like dying and rebirth as the inky embrace wrapped around her face and filled her eye sockets and eardrums and mouth, which had opened futilely to suck in air which was no longer available to her, so her lungs pulled in the ink instead

until every part of her was completely filled with it and her twitching corpse lay floating there

wide staring eyes seeing only the bottomless hole below, mouth open in a frozen scream

from one of the nearby surrounding trees reached a knobby wrinkly grey arm with so little muscle attached to the bones one might, if one could see it, wonder how it had any strength at all

yet of course it needed no real strength for the arm had a hand

a hand that had five long bony fingers capped with five long pointed nails and with these long nails it reached right past the long pale tresses floating there

hovering momentarily over her pale naked back then quickly jabbing in grabbed a hold and wrested out the cold bright starlight blue soul of the pathetic wretch which now saw nothing

ripped her free and pulled her up, up, up into the branches of the tree

she, the soul that is, sat cowering on the branch impotently furious at being denied her desired fate

the ink would have eventually seeped in and covered even the soul’s essence until eventually she forgot everything that had gone before

no, instead here she sat across the thick branch of the soul-stealer’s tree and glared as best she could, without eyes or a face, waiting

though she didn’t have to wait long ‘before you go,’ the soul-stealer whispered in a voice that seemed to come from all around and not from the thin shrouded figure which sat leaning against the tree’s trunk ‘you’ve got just one more task to complete’

if she could have sighed, she would have, for apparently even death wouldn’t release her from this hell

tara caribou | ©️2019 revised

Category: PoetryTags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

52 Comments on “Denied A Simpler Fate”

  4. Sorry. I thought I said it was a positive thing
    My bad. Unless of course you are apologizing for what happened years ago… everybody seems to be apologetic. I would need to make it a full time job to stop a listen to strangers apologizing for my people they never met over 20 years ago.
    I guess without such niceties we would fall into tyranny.
    I really need a pay rise though. Lol

    Liked by 1 person

  7. Oh that cusp. That cusp where you have it all riding on your next move, or so you think. To pull back from the brink is one thing: to be pulled back, quite another. The nagging thoughts that pull you back, seeming external but internal all the way… an exquisite depiction of a painful, painful reality.

    Liked by 1 person

  8. really interesting. it feels like maybe there is always one more thing to do, even when that is done… no excuse to leave before the last one is done? is there ever a last one? the soul stealers voice came from all around? inside voice feels the same sometimes to me … it like one side of the coin spoke of the unspoken other side – the reality of the contradiction that is our free choice and our slavery to our conscience …

    Liked by 1 person

  11. Wonderfully dark, and I feel that this works really well on more than one level: it is quite a chilling ‘horror’ piece and yet also (and this, to me, is far darker) a disturbing tale of someone in the grip of depression, in thecjaws of the ‘Black Dog’. Maybe I’m over thinking, but I love the images that this has stirred.

    Liked by 1 person

  13. The levels in this piece are startling, “black on black ink” stepping in naked and having it permeate every crevice……but still no relief, pulled back from the brink,no escape…..Ink, writing,drowning in it, “one more thing”….. Tara, although the blackness of depression is almost impossible to convey, this comes as close as anything I have ever read.
    I know I am repeating myself as Jo says above but you are one of the most courageous and authentic writers I have ever read.

    Liked by 1 person

    • Thank you so very much. That means an awful lot to me. When I first wrote this, I felt like it said everything I wanted it to say but it wasn’t well received. I suppose I need to let go of that and be content that it was what *I* needed and also that there are a couple people out there who truly understand its depths. Thank you again for reading my words.

      Liked by 1 person

  14. Pingback: Sunshine blogger award – tales told different

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