The first draft of something I plan on submitting to a magazine. Working title is "Chains"

People leave.

People leave and go to unknown places

Far away from me.

Even those to whom I owe my life

I eventually must say farewell.

 

Why can I not end them cleanly?

These chains are not broken by brute force.

They rust over

And are ravaged by time

until they crumble

bit by bit

Hemorrhaging sickly flakes into the sky.

It is no surgeon’s hand removing a tumor

But a knife savagely stuck into your gut

And the real pain is when it is jerked out

Sticky pieces of viscera clinging to a once shining blade.

 

And yet.

And yet.

 

For some reason I cannot fathom

I cannot simply let go

It is not so simple

That I can cleave in two

These chains forged in the heat of hardship.

I cannot help but stay my hand.

I resign myself to this aching loss.

 

There I laid, seeing Nothing and hearing Nothing

While the world whirled by

 

That was how I once thought.

With the same time

Which ripped everything from me

I have come to realize:

 

These chains will collapse

Perhaps, when they do

I will leave this place

Perhaps, when I do

A great wind will carry me

Pushing me further from where I am

To where I will be:

 

A great, vast unknown.

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