Voyage
Issue Two of three
Volume Nº37
Odyssey
Any Way The Wind Blows
By Tzipora Gordon
The wind is howling. It always is, these days. The air blows colder and colder against my skin, no matter how tightly I pull my jacket around myself. The sky looms black and blue above my head, darker and darker each moment. I have to make it to the little shelter we call home; have to make it back to my fool of a poet and his shining words. He has so much hope, no matter what happens. I admire him for it. He shuts himself up, never leaves our house (what passes for one, anyway), determined to make a difference, with a song to fix the world.
I wish I had that much faith.
But the storm grows closer, louder, and before I can blink– I am trapped. All I can see are sheets of rain, crashing in front of me, matting my hair to my head. My pack falls from my back, my coat tearing off of my arms with the force of the gales. The wind picks up, taunting me. Why is this my lot in life? I thought it would be different now. I got too used to promises; I forgot how often they wind up unkept, shades that grip at my heels. It is all I can do to remain on my feet, and soon even that is too much.
I call his name. There is no answer.
There is sudden silence, a weight to the air. A smell of metal and dirt invades my lungs as I try to catch my breath and try in vain to see who is behind me. Hello, little songbird. He promises so much– whispers that my hopes were for naught, that this will bring relief– and above the din of what could be, my stomach grumbles.
I do not have Orpheus’s faith. (I take Hades’s hand.)
The ticket? Right here. Come along now.
MILLIE SCHWARTZ
Voyage
By MiLLIE Schwartz
II. THE TRAVELER
What could keep me away from you?
Threaded dark hair frames your honey-soft voice in the world of terrene thought;
Brightly-toned, cheerful, your eyes reach me deep in my kingdom of no sleep;
Floorboards above me, I dream of you, thinking on peril I’ll soon face;
No monster, no sorcerer, no bloodthirsty giant
Could keep me away from you.
What could keep me away from you?
Motherly, kindly, your voice in my consciousness modestly bears me;
Standing at back of me, holding my wish to return borne on calm tide;
While I fell mountains, bring titans to beg for my mercy on their knees;
No serpent, no bandit, no vengeful god
Could keep me away from you.
What could keep me away from you?
Loyally faithful, you balm my sharp jealousy ev’ry day with love;
You stay unwavering, ever affectionate, soothing my vexed mind;
Beauty and grace build your figure, assuring me always you’ve stayed true;
No enchantress, no siren, no helpless maiden
Could keep me away from you.
II. THE SENTINEL
What could keep you away from me?
War-wrought and rough, your hands sink my heart down to the depths of my sore mind;
Fevered, adventurous, twisting my stomach with zealous drive––you fight;
Hundred and one threads my loom has seen, time and again, in my long wait;
But you said no monster, no sorcerer, no bloodthirsty giant
Could keep you away from me.
What could keep you away from me?
Thoughtfully minded, your boundless thirst always for more makes my head pound;
Strategies putting you pathwise of dangerous beasts make my pulse leap;
Barring the doors on the men who would throw out your mem’ry to the waves;
But you said no serpent, no bandit, no vengeful god
Could keep you away from me.
What could keep you away from me?
Curious and roaming, your gaze makes my lungs scream out from my aggrieved chest;
Wanting of silent approval and beauty, you cause my distressed gasps;
Tuning out noise of the suitors ‘neath sounds of my frantic loom, I watch;
But you said no enchantress, no siren, no helpless maiden
Could keep you away from me.
It's a joy to be alive
By Elana Algarin
I think sometimes we think growing up has to be painful
It has to mean an inability to return to the state of curiosity, hope, and wonder our childhood selves were graced with
We feel it has to be bleak–
That the definition of reality is this state of painful, difficult, struggles
When does it have to be?
Growing up is remembering and forgetting all at the same time
To create our own reality by deciding that life is an experience
And with it
Comes joy, hopes, dreams
Tears, dread, shame
It means to be alive
To truly live
Is to experience and rejoice
Because you are alive
You get to experience the ins and out of the human experience
And grow, and remain
A gift to others and yourself
And that your reality can be unlike the one you crafted
Taken hold of to acknowledge the multifaceted reality of living
To take life by its collar and decide today you’re alive
Your reality is your own for the making
And realizing is the first step to reshaping all that ever stopped you to all that will ever motivate you
The Dragon
By Millie M. Schwartz
The journey is long
The day is short
The wives are grumbling
The men retort
The dragon roars
The villagers scream
The boats lay oars
The rapiers gleam
The knights are afraid
The horses are hiding
The wings spread shade
The time is a-biding
The princess has run
The king’s in the street
The general is done
The soldiers retreat
The dragon cries winner
The people cry tears
The monster makes dinner
The yells hit deaf ears
The beast has prevailed
The village has lost
The ships have all sailed
The town’s paid the cost
The words have been penned
The book has been bound
The readers know the end
The dragon’s been crowned.
A Journey's Trials
By Ben Fisher
On this isle a sorceress lays/and on this isle our hero stays. Through his skill and a god’s aid/in his own form he shall remain.
His men she did turn into swine/but with him she sat down with to dine. Marriage was the sacred price/for our hero to receive her advice.
To Hades shall our hero go/to seek the seer, far below. The terror is great in the abyss/as is his message: Charybdis.
Our hero travels through dire straits/on either side his death awaits. Though he lost much of his crew/he did succeed and made it through.
The Tidedancer and her loyal crew/To the city of Zaun, on waves they flew.
For guidance from the spirit of wind/and her aid to defeat those who sinned.
The first to fall to her shifting blade/was a terror of the sea, divinely made.
The figurehead slain with boundless joy/and the wind’s power to build and destroy.
The word arrives of power old/far to the north, in ice and cold. The Volibear claimed many lives/always demanding a sacred tithe.
Nilah speaks with powerful voice/ “My duty calls, to make the choice: To defeat this foe and his vile vice/or be forever buried in crushing ice.”
Though noble may a hero be/they face their match upon the sea. To sink or swim, and overcome/will separate the brave from numb.
Out at Sea
Anonymous
Out on the ocean, surrounded by the stormy grey seas
The longing for family and home is all that bothers me
I can weather a storm, lightning, thunder, and all
We cannot stop for a broken stern or falling tree
Through the storm we sail, with only one man lost
We have much to do today to have that be the only cost
Now mastless and limping, I man one of the oars
As the men and I row and refuse to exhaust
Now with shore in sight, we begin to rejoice
We are home at last, the flag of victory we hoist
When an awful wave comes and capsizes our vessel
Save my brethren or go home, that is the choice
Which pain do I choose to burden?
Aderet Feldblum
Gust
By Millie Schwartz
I stand amidst a sea of still, green blades. They prick my soles, peeking between my toes. The green is silent. The blue is silent. I am silent.
And then it begins.
The gust.
The great, rushing gale that ripples the blades––one over the other until they roil beneath the swirling blue.
And the world is no longer silent.
Now it screams––it shrieks through the blades, knocking them against the ground, against each other. It wails through the air, shouting through my hair, blowing it about me.
And I am not silent.
I scream with it, spreading my hands and closing my eyes, tilting my head to meet the gust. I let it splay my hair behind me, let it cool my face, my tongue. I let it pass through me, as if I’m a ghost––invisible.
And then finally, it happens.
As I scream, the wind lifts me, lifts me up to meet it.
We yell in unison, and the gale whips through my clothing, my body, rendering me weightless and afloat.
And then I can fly.
Or––it is as if I can, anyway.
I join the wind––I become the wind.
We are one, and we howl as one.
And then,
all too soon,
it ends.
The wind calms in the catharsis of its cry.
It quiets, and with its volume, it lowers me back down to the stilling green.
The blades once again stick to my feet, my hair falls back to my skin.
The wind draws away from my face, leaving me stinging.
It sets me down and leaves me––gently.
But it hurts.
Because I can no longer shout into the rushing blue-green.
I can no longer rend my thoughts upon the jagged air.
I cannot scream alone.
Elana Algarin
Alexai Navalny
By Mussia Poltorak
“Without any doubt, I am striving for power.” - Alexei Navalny
He can only speak where his voice is heard
But not where it counts
Not in his motherland, where people rally with him to no avail
Instead, he joins his voice in free exile
Where he is hailed as a hero for his brave thoughts
But where he also slips into oblivion
So he goes home, to exile
He takes action so that he cannot act
His voice is only heard at times
Plastered to a glass sheet separating the prisoned from the free
Silver foil concealing his words
His inertia propels others to scream
To fill the streets in rage, despair
His friends, who serve as his mouthpiece
Soon join him in his cell as well
He places an unwinnable wager
Where he may speak, his intended audience cannot hear
Where they can listen, he can barely speak at all
Yet he turns himself into a sacrifice anyway
Like a marred lamb on the altar
Let us hope his death is not for naught
He lives to die, a fallen hero
A martyr
Long Time Passing
by Tzipora Gordon
In a small corner of the universe, there is a small planet. On a segment of that planet, there is a small country. In a region of that country, there is a small town. And in the middle of that town, there is a river. A long, winding brook, that once giggled with the children who gathered at its banks.
That river lies abandoned now.
To be sure, there are still people in the town. Wizened old men and women with graying hair and cloudy eyes. Adults who nod perfunctory ‘hello’s across the street or in their shops. But in no corner of that small town can there be found a child. No babbling infant or crying toddler, no smug pre-teens with crooked teeth or teenagers who put on airs. There is no one to sit and keep the river company, for the adults pay it no heed. They grumble as they step around it, hating the memories the river holds. They need no reminder of what they lost. The music of the stream leaves them cursing at air, hissing angrily at empty roads.
In a small corner of the universe, there is a little town with a silent river. The piper taught the townspeople a lesson, all those years ago, children dancing away with rats. And the river learned its lesson, too, quieting its song until it too froze in old rhythms of despair.
No one asked where the children had gone. They were too heartbroken to wonder.
(In a small cave, near a small town, in a small country, there will be a group of young adults who once were children. They may venture out of their hollow on occasion, find places to visit and people to meet. But there will always be an understanding between them, and it is thus: Hamelin is a gloomy, mournful town, one never worth visiting. There are no children in Hamelin, and their grandchildren will never return.
Et Tu, Brute?
By Abby rich
Et tu, Brute?
Under the bright beams pouring through
This dusty glass, beams you true
A mere gild, of what should have been
Light as a vulture's graceful feather you are
Though coated in a deceptive heavy gold
Swift in sword, quickly you soared
Et tu, Brute? Falsely you swore?
Your eyes gleam of steely sapphire,
Your heart like equally sturdy stone,
Unfettered by your crimson guilt
Alas, I should have known!
All this time behind those earnest eyes
Lurked treachery behind that glittering guise
Both your dagger and words cut so deep
Et tu, Brute? I weep
In the echoes of your betrayal
I find my trust in unsightly disarray
A shattered mirror, shards scattered about
I strain to pick them up, mend what once was
My hands ooze out in agony, I am unable
O, the scars have been cemented
Asclepius! Will they ever fade?
Et tu Brute? ‘Twas a charade!
Reverse World
by Nava chetrit
“It's him or me the world will never be the same” The devil mutters, talking to himself, though another hears. God is listening, so very cunningly. He knows if he lays waste to the devil and everything he has ever built, darkness will prevail. The devil was the contractor of the tower of babel, promoting unity. He composed the symphony of freedom. All were equal, in his conceptualization. No more righteous than others, as they all abided by the letter of the law.
God is the one who made them jealous, cunning, and wicked. But the devil sought to set the example of restraint. He was extremely hostile to the idea of hostility, and would not fight back against God. God, he indoctrinated mankind, poisoned them into the belief that he was the righteous one, although righteousness was the least of his concerns.
If only the devil knew how to proceed, knew to abandon his strong-held beliefs for a moment. Maybe then the sunset would not be streaked with the swift course of the devil’s blood, the sunset at the end of the world.
Who Am I?
by Nava chetrit
He starts in the beginning
Ends at the finish
Lives a long life
Visiting each end
He decides when you’re leaving,
Starting or through
But despite all of this
He still cares for you
He caresses your cheeks
Leaving canyons behind
Gifts you memories
Leaving you with a smile
Though he flies,
He also takes a while
He is everywhere, nowhere, beyond
And if you think hard, you won’t get his name wrong.
The Ocean
By Tzipora Gordon
Buoyancy
The ocean is vast and glowing before you, shining with the hope and promise of a short journey. The wind is in your hair, brushing along your arms (free of greaves, in daylight, for the first time in ten years), tugging your lips into a smile. Homeward bound, finally. The salt smell of the sea is a welcome respite from the fire and blood of the past few days and years. The crash of the waves sounds in time with your breathing, the ship sways in time with your heart. Peace, at last, the sun shining its gold into your veins. And knowing that to come, blessedly, is what you have been waiting for, fighting for all these years.
That you are soon to reach safe shores, where Penelope and Telemachus await.
Passage
The ocean is misty before you, darkness growing heavier with each stroke of the oars. The wind is sharp and biting, lifting your cloaks until your crew look like shades. (Can they even be called a crew now? forty-three men…) You cling to Circe’s promise, pray to Hermes for another gift. This is a desperate gambit, you know it is. You may have been able to sway an enchantress, but to even make it to the realm of the dead, let alone back, is a daunting task. To convince the prophet to help you, yet harder. But it is a chance, and that is all you have now. It has been so, so long since you’ve seen your wife and son.
You know these shores will be unsafe, but you keep your eyes on the horizon.
Impact
The ocean is bright and open before you, the peace terrifying. The wind tugs at your hair, pulling your lips into a faint smile in memory. Your ship is empty now, the lone ship remaining of your fleet, with you the only crew. (You focus on the clothes and food, pretend that makes a raft a warship. It is your last bit of dignity to cling to.) As much as you have changed, as tense as this moment is, there is something relieving about it. To be on the open sea once more, swaying in time with the waves instead of watching them from afar, feels like the first breath you’ve taken since landing on Ogygia. You’re free, blessedly, Athena’s bargaining having saved you. And for the first time in ten years, you dare to hope once more.
That you will finally reach safe shores, where Penelope and Telemachus await.
Tempest
The ocean is quiet before you, the silence deafening. There is no wind, save for the quarrelsome bag you clutch in your fist. Your eyes stay open through a mix of determination and sea salt, the point of your exhaustion nearing on the horizon. Your crew edges closer, closer, and you wave them away weakly. Your eyes close. [The ship sways, and your eyes open with a jolt. The bag–!] The wind has gone wild, shaking the ship with every breath you draw. The crew stands staring, openmouthed, as they start sliding across the deck in the force of the gales. You dash towards the bag, Eurylochus at your heels as the bag seems to shrink. You land on it with a heavy crash, catching the last of the wind. The ship is dramatically off course, and you suppress a sigh, a scream.
Will you ever reach safe shores, or are you cursed to die a wanderer?
Faultlines
The ocean crashes angrily before you, suffused with the fury of the Earthshaker. The wind tears at your skin, threatening to gouge your eyes with its ferocity. Helios’s– Apollo’s– horses buck away in the face of this sudden anger, hiding the sun. Your crew (or what’s left of it, after the cyclops and his club) flounder, dragging the oars relentlessly against the waves. Athena echoes in your head, the disappointment and dismissal apparent in her voice. For all your cleverness, for all you kept six hundred men alive through a ten year war, your blunder is striking you over the head with your own stupidity.
You can no longer trust in finding safe shores, left instead with the open, incensed sea.
Refrain
The ocean swells gently before you, whispered songs reaching your ears. The wind blows past you, pushing your hair into your face. You were doing something, you know– you have to protect your crew, have to chart your course… You are deaf to all but the promise of knowledge and wisdom singing in your ears, the smell of wax cloying your nostrils. Your arms chafe against rope and the wood of your mast, and even as you struggle, you try to call to your crew. They don’t respond, only pulling the ropes tighter and rowing faster. Why did you tell them to tie you up, when just below the waves lies honor and understanding? Why do they not heed this call? Slowly but surely, your ship pulls away, and as the voice fades, you remember.
You long for safe shores, but the ocean looms ahead.
Whiplash
The ocean whirls before you, danger hemming you in on both sides. The wind hisses past your ears, mocking as it carries to you the screams of your crewmates. You have to get through this strait, but your crew is getting restless and desperate. No longer can they have full faith that you will bring them through safely– your history has proven that much. (The whispers of shades you met on the road to Hades join with shrieks of terror, cries of disappointment in their commander). There is a way to get past this, there must be. You have to find a way to bring what’s left of your crew home, a way to see your family again. As your ship struggles through the whirlpool, you sight Helios’ island ahead, and Tiresias’s words ring in your memory.
These unsafe shores could be the death of your crew, but you pray they will listen.
Elana Algarin
Serpent's Genesis
By mussia poltorak
We are torn
Wars have cast us apart
Our tears still linger as scars
They expose our finitude
Our leather skin is fractured
What we took in the garden
Shiny red and so very sweet
Is being stolen from us
We are swindled like we swindled them
Our legs amputated
A high price for stolen divinity
No longer can we walk
But one day we will return
Move past our strife
To spar something grander
Call forth the eternal lore
We will awaken
Ouroboros
MILLIE SchWARTZ
Silence is ever so beautiful
By Elana Algarin
I sing to the heavens
I call to the earth
I hear the aggravation of people between people
I hear them crying and singing
I hear swinging from left and right
I'm going forward im going back
And im wondering where im going cuz i been in here a long time waiting
For a peaceful moment, a silence ever so beautiful
Fly
By Millie M. Schwartz
I can fly––but only sometimes.
Only when the wind blows through me
And lifts me up
And makes me weightless.
Only when the clouds reach down
And carry me up
And hide me in the stars.
Only when the sun looks toward me
And brings me up
And lends me freedom.
Only when the sky comes near
And wraps me up
And keeps me safe.
Only sometimes––but I can fly.
Elana algarin
The Witness
By Gil Yarsky
Right.
So.
Our story starts with the woman in the basement, so we might as well start there too. Her name is Jane Rodgers and she is thirty-five years of age and her hair is a light brown color and she has never ever been married although once she was close but the guy chickened out but that’s a different story anyway, and besides none of this matters because as of this moment Jane Rodgers is dead and her face, her pretty pretty face, has been burned past the point of identifiability.
She, however, has been identified due to the fact that she was murdered in her home, as much as anything can be called a home and as much as the home was hers. There are two people identifying the body, one of whom is named Cathy and the other of whom isn’t since it would be kind of a coincidence if both had the exact same name. Nosirree. The other one is named Alice, as in the Rabbithole. Anyway, both of them look down at the corpse, a Jane –although not a Doe– and neither of them really speaks for a moment. Instead, body language does most of the non-talking that they need.
Are we sure she’s dead? One asks.
Now that’s kind of an idiotic question, the other one responds, although they say it much more tactfully. It never pays to be rude to someone like that.
Cathy’s got an expression like she’s hungry for a cigarette, even though she hasn't smoked for years. Maybe sometimes you just want to suck in a pocketed flame and destroy yourself in a rush of dirty flavored ash. Maybe instead it’s for the aesthetic appeal, the years of cinema and advertisements telling us smoking is cool. Or maybe you just want a goddamn cigarette because nicotine is an addictive chemical that kills you from the inside out.
Alice doesn’t really have one of those expressions since she doesn’t smoke. Instead she goes on with her examining of the body. It’s not pretty, let me say that.
Seven nails have been, for lack of a better word, nailed right into the head of the woman like a coronation. The eyes have been gouged out, one was blue and the other was green which is a condition called heterochromia although this doesn’t matter any more and the hair has been burned off in whatever fire. This is not a pretty murder scene and our two women think that as they bundle up the body and begin looking for clues.
Clues are like trying to build a spider’s web without a spider. Clues are mathematicians trying to make sense of a world that somehow contains Gödel’s incompleteness theorem and Cantor’s diagonalization argument, not to mention the Halting problem. Clues are like a poem by John Milton explaining the nature of divinity except for the fact that he was a hack who never wrote a word with any soul in it. In short, Clues explain things and make the corkboard untangled.
There are a lot of clues here, from the subtle bloodstains on the carpet to the fingerprints on the door to the brand of the nails to the last message written on the typewriter. The pounding of Jane’s heart as she screamed for mystery. The novels by Hemingway she’d been reading the night before. There is a mystery here and it will be solved. Clues definitely exist here.
It’s just that Cathy and Alice, our doomed protagonists, won’t be the ones to solve this since at that very moment the house explodes in a fiery explosion, taking all hope for truth and rationality with it. Nothing remains but the dust. A fitting conclusion, wouldn’t you say? And if you don’t, well who the Hell asked you? What made you think you could have an opinion on the matter? That anything you say or did made any difference? Since it doesn’t. You ever heard of Cotard’s delusion? It’s not a delusion. I should know. I’m Death, and good night. Thanks for reading.
I Made My Decision
By Elana Algarin
My skin is like paper
My blood is like ink
My eyes are like cameras
My feelings are like memories
In a tale essential to my fate
This was how it all began
As a child with crayons
My paper was an undiscovered territory
Mine for the making
The paper laid bare
The crayons scattered along the table
My clothes remained warm
And a happiness basked in my smile
Overtaken, my paper was filled with scribbles and lines
Of random colors and details
My mind, so enamored with the universe,
Tried to capture it all
The taste of a warm chicken soup on a friday night.
The dining room table filled with people, had such a bright atmosphere
As they spoke about their week, and tidbits about their lives
Their stories, their words, these moments inscribed themselves into me
Into something I wanted to always remember
Into laughter that even now brings a smile upon my face
All these moments, days, periods in time each year have created a sense of fulfillment in me
Even before I knew what that meant
The bright pink and purple petals that swayed in the spring air.
Almost as if they were dancing to the melody of the wind
Were ever so vibrant
As if they were admitting a light
A light so bright my childhood self could only stare, in wonder
And beautiful they remained, every day I came back from school.
My favorite blanket being wrapped around me by my mom, snug and warm before bed, the feeling of safety and comfort remain keen in my heart.
My small hands grazed the papers in front of me, tracing the letters, following my teachers instructions. I sat and I wrote and I was proud.
I fancied the divine, the gift that is to live and be alive in a world made with love.
To look at everything with wonder, to not waste time with worry but to sing with joy.
I wonder when my heart became forgetful of joy, scared of hope, insecure in my dreams.
Was it
When I woke up in a cold sweat, calling out to my loved ones out of fear because I thought I lost everyone I ever loved, a nightmare that pangs me even now?
When I sat at the dining room table
My food supposedly warm, the candles bright, the atmosphere willing to be filled with joy? Dreams were brought to dust
By my heart, panged with despair, and by my eyes shut for a moment as my heart ached
As I gulped down my food just so I wouldn’t have to face another reminder of the empty seats besides me.
Hot tears by extinguishing candles.
When the night was dark.
I opened the door to my brothers room and stood there as he layed in bed barely awake
Conversing normally
Till it came up
And for the first time that night did I realize how much it hurt to be called names
Names that striped me of my feelings, my dreams, all I ever loved
Names that spat on my right to my humanity
When I walked outside with my family
A usual route we would take on saturdays to get back home after services
Where my mind bounced from subject to subject
Of different parts of my pain manifesting in ill thoughts, and better left alone memories
I couldn't even appreciate the pink petals
The ones I always admired, watched, started as they danced with the wind
It became clear to me
How sometimes you can get so stuck in your head you can’t even appreciate, maybe even notice the good right in front of you
When I realized free will denotes the ability to make decisions. Not an affirmation for kindness, responsibility, or moral goodness in this world.
No, free will means you can choose anything.
A father can choose to neglect his kids, leaving them without any real father figure
A friend of someone can choose to sabotage that person's dreams and hopes
A lover can lie over what's most important and break your trust.
A sibling can cast you aside when you most need them
Free will means some people will choose to hurt you
To make fun of you.
To try to break you down
To watch you be hurt and choose to do nothing.
Free will means to make a decision.
Not to be humane
Free will means a choice
Not an oath to care for another individual
Because no one is obligated to choose anything.
No one is obligated to care about you, be present in your life.
And they can choose to not care about you.
They can choose to hurt you.
They can choose to watch you be in pain.
They can choose.
When I was unable to speak of what filled dread inside of me, what made me panic stricken, on the edge of tears. For I felt the pressure on my loved ones, who were constantly burdened with work and responsibilities. Making my own become swallowed in the layers of my consciousness. Buried.
Maybe it was the emotions, the timing,
Maybe it's growing up and forgetting
All you cherished
All you ever loved
All you ever dreamed
All you ever hoped
To keep up with the world
A million letters making up words, thoughts, and decisions I had no idea how to make
Maybe there's nothing to blame
Maybe there's everything to blame
Because everything, and nothing make up your reality
Every decision you take, every one you didn’t
Every decision ever taken or not taken
Creates what you knew, know, and will realize
Maybe it's time to leave behind the memories, the regrets burned in your memory, the time you can’t get back
In favor of the future you wish to save
The image of your childhood paper
Laying bare in front of you
As you stare out in the world enamored
Maybe it's time to remember
To fancy the world and take out your crayons
To draw and capture the memory
Of the day you decided to take your life back
And live as the “you” your childhood self always knew you could
The Scything Boulder
By abby rich
From upon that peak of weather colder
Rolled an ever-upsizing rocky boulder
With a gleaming scythe in hand
It stopped for none on this snowy land
“Halt! A mighty fee I’ll pay thee!”
But they quickly went asunder
“Halt! I’ve done so many great deeds!”
But it wouldn't matter whether they’d blundered
“Halt! My form is too precious to be made naught!”
But they too couldn't avoid the thunder
The boulder gets the best and the worst
Those who care not and those who curse
Naught to ease, all are seized
Deaf to pleas, death is pleased
Longing In Ithica
by Abby Rich
Though in Ithaca, I’m not quite home
For my heart yearns for the fresh, earthy battlefield
Where our lucky fate is proven time after time,
The Trojan War proving no different
Heading back I already began to long for my beloved comrades
Some of whom fell victim to the great Thanatos in all his wrath
Horses still neigh, but unaccompanied by the crisp sounds of shouting and spears
That so oddly displace me from my usual saddening solitude
Flip the sails, for I must go back
The battlefield is my home, a place matching my robust spirit
Where I can war and lead, quell my boredom from a deafening quiet grown old
And now my native home lay besieged before me
So what other option do I have?
And the glory is gone, for all is said and done
Yet I still feel incomplete, as though I must return
Flip the sails, flip the sails
If not, then what?