(Content Warning…brief and poetic mention of domestic violence and death).
When I was young.
The lake would freeze over.
And I would watch the men.
Warmed by their jackets and rage.
Find solace in the wooden shacks perched over the ice.
I was told they were there to fish.
But I knew better.
Because I could hear her voice.
Smokey and dark.
I could hear her song rising up through the frozen everything.
I could feel her.
Rumble and reign.
I knew.
She was there.
And though they knew nothing.
Those men.
They could feel her through the forever cold.
They needed her.
They worshiped her.
It was something they longed for.
All year.
When they would finally allow the soft grief to fall from their eyes.
When their tears would carve portals through the ice.
To form spaces where she could breathe in the night air.
Spaces where she could reach them.
They worshiped her.
Though they never knew it.
Because her song sounded like the crackling of ice.
And the hum of something understood but unspoken.
They just knew they needed to be there.
To pretend that they were on a hunt.
When really.
They waited.
They would.
All of them.
Inevitably.
Eventually.
Fall asleep.
And she would reach through the depths.
To their dreams.
And let the rage fall out of them.
Into her hungry maw.
In her.
Their rage burned.
Hot.
It became a revelation.
That would.
In time.
Melt the freeze.
And free the fire.
Letting spring force its way through.
So that life could be reborn.
The men.
Who would not let go.
The men.
Who gripped their anger tightly in their fists.
And shared it in hues of blue and purple.
They were known to disappear into the cold depths.
And yet, they all kept coming out onto the ice just the same.
One night.
When I did not care if anyone saw me.
I walked out onto the ice and laid down on my back.
Aching to breathe her in.
Needing to hear her song.
Wondering if there was something in me.
That she could take.
Wondering if there was something in her.
That she would offer.
In the quiet of the night.
I sang to her.
Letting her know.
That I knew she was there.
Her voice was the silent quake of the world.
My heart shook.
And I could feel her words wrap around me.
“There is nothing.
If you are not willing.
To drop below your breath.
And unfurl into the landscape between the bones of your hips.
So that you can discover the wild that existed before you ever came into being.
Nothing if you are not willing.
To pull yourself together.
Until your density shakes the earth.
With each movement you make.
There is nothing.
If you are not willing.
To call the sun to its knees.
And the moon to its tides.
There is nothing.
If you are not willing.
To choose.
Who you want to be.”
And with that.
I sank.
Into myself.
With that.
I filled the worlds that writhed within.
With that I gave howl to my wants and wishes.
With that.
I became the call.
That whips through the trees.
And chases the fog.
With that.
I became.
The one.
Who summons the stars.
With that.
I became the myth.
They all still whisper about.
Article voiceover
4 Comments
2 more comments...No posts
Beautiful, Jo Anna.
Stunning, powerful, vivid