The Riverbed
Her hair seemed to shy away from its placement. Soft like snow, she brushed it back again for what seemed to be the thousandth time now.
A lump was caught in her throat, and if not the water that formed in her eyes to blur the vision, then her hair would do the work her tears failed to do. Again the result repeated itself, gently wisping around her face, almost as if to comfort her.
She stared down, the tears that had once been caught in her eyes, burst from their dam, and began to match the momentum of the river below.
Her hand shuddered as she faintly gripped the railing of the bridge. She had already made the decision a thousand times a year before. A hundred times alone, in the night before last.
But now it felt so different. Being a single breath away from both the beginning and the end.
The wish she had made for herself in her head, was not granted as she had envisioned it. There was nothing swift about the 4 miles it took her to walk to the destination. That gave her plenty of time for reflection. For bitter sorrows and regrets and shames to pull and twist at her emotions. All she had wanted was some peace.
And yet...
There was no peace from where she had been left to stand. Alone, so horribly alone. A gaping feeling of endless abandonment stuck in her chest. Even in her supposed final moments. This feeling would never leave her, but perhaps, if she had truly had someone. A moment like this would never be taking place as it was now.
But still she could not envision herself there. She could not see the sorrow of others faces as they passed by to witness the tragedy. She could not feel the presence of love for her soul by angels carrying her beyond the clouds. She could not feel that gnashing pain of death relinquishing any of the scars that made up most of her torments. She could not see freedom, or the light on the other end of the tunnel, signifying an exit, an escape from it all.
Only the bitterness of the abyss staring back, as she was forced to face her own loneliness that gnawed at her soul, that caused her to wretch every night in fits of anguish.
Her hand rubbed gently against the mark he had left her. An unbecoming sign of a woman. The words were a pair. After he had already tarnished her with his own. She found it comforting somehow, knowing that she could take the control back, in such an insignificant way, over her own body...
A line ran through on her arm, cutting out the word CONSENT and above it was written IT'S OKAY. In much larger letters than the one beneath it.
Somehow, every time she rubbed her arm on that self-made scar, it provided her with some semblance of comfort. And she felt slightly loved in this world. Even if, that love was only from herself...
The sounds of the rivers rushing, made its way to her ears and provided her anxieties with a temporary and fixated cure. For a few minutes she just stood there, lost, away from all time, and matter and worry.
Slowly, her mind began to turn from the solution that lay before her, just beyond the edge of her feet. To other possibilities. Endless, myriads of possibilities. Ones she hadn't fully discovered or thought out in full upon.
And though she felt the firmness of her resolve shake before the bewitching tantalizations of hope, to be a sign of pitiful weakness towards her initial determinations.
As that desire diminished. She began to think herself the better for it. Slowly, and bitterly, yet not without hope. The waters she watched, ever running forward in that climactic stream. That carried on, past the obstacles of great stones and logs and brush in their way. Was more and more of what she too wanted to become.
And as she gradually took that first step back, away from that ledge, with the bright call of a new purpose set within her heart. The fear she had once experienced seemed to all melt away.
For it was within that transfixation, being so lost within the sirens call of that enigmatic riverbed, with the vast array of its promises, and soothing march of its melody. That something else was lost unto her entirely for astute devotion to its mighty personification.
And what had melted from her heart, was replaced with a thick lacquer of vile and oozing dread unlike anything she had known before. As the gentle clasp of a hand, fell upon her shoulder. And with no more effort than that of opening or closing a door. Had sent her careening towards the strong river she wished that she could become.
She did what she could, to turn. With what little balance she had left, to see the face of the one who had decided upon a whim, to do that which she could not do herself.
And there it was, the face of a stranger, a familiar look within the smile he was leaving her with. Not the face of her abuser. But a smile of cruelty, all too much the same.
Her hand reached out as the clouds rushed past her vision, as if there were some chance they would form into a rope for her to stop the plummeting of her fall.
An indistinguishable pain seared through her back, as she coughed up blood, and her eyes once again began to blur. A sharp edge of stone protruding where her breast had once been. And her eyes never left the face of that smiling man, who only seemed to lean closer, and revel in the perverse monstrosity the creation of his hands had wrought.
And as she lay there. Cold, in fear, unable to even breathe her last. She saw that face grimace into that same twisted look of being disgraced, by their own boredom. As the half-blurred image slowly shuffled itself away, across the other side of the bridge. On a road she would never take home...
A lump was caught in her throat, and if not the water that formed in her eyes to blur the vision, then her hair would do the work her tears failed to do. Again the result repeated itself, gently wisping around her face, almost as if to comfort her.
She stared down, the tears that had once been caught in her eyes, burst from their dam, and began to match the momentum of the river below.
Her hand shuddered as she faintly gripped the railing of the bridge. She had already made the decision a thousand times a year before. A hundred times alone, in the night before last.
But now it felt so different. Being a single breath away from both the beginning and the end.
The wish she had made for herself in her head, was not granted as she had envisioned it. There was nothing swift about the 4 miles it took her to walk to the destination. That gave her plenty of time for reflection. For bitter sorrows and regrets and shames to pull and twist at her emotions. All she had wanted was some peace.
And yet...
There was no peace from where she had been left to stand. Alone, so horribly alone. A gaping feeling of endless abandonment stuck in her chest. Even in her supposed final moments. This feeling would never leave her, but perhaps, if she had truly had someone. A moment like this would never be taking place as it was now.
But still she could not envision herself there. She could not see the sorrow of others faces as they passed by to witness the tragedy. She could not feel the presence of love for her soul by angels carrying her beyond the clouds. She could not feel that gnashing pain of death relinquishing any of the scars that made up most of her torments. She could not see freedom, or the light on the other end of the tunnel, signifying an exit, an escape from it all.
Only the bitterness of the abyss staring back, as she was forced to face her own loneliness that gnawed at her soul, that caused her to wretch every night in fits of anguish.
Her hand rubbed gently against the mark he had left her. An unbecoming sign of a woman. The words were a pair. After he had already tarnished her with his own. She found it comforting somehow, knowing that she could take the control back, in such an insignificant way, over her own body...
A line ran through on her arm, cutting out the word CONSENT and above it was written IT'S OKAY. In much larger letters than the one beneath it.
Somehow, every time she rubbed her arm on that self-made scar, it provided her with some semblance of comfort. And she felt slightly loved in this world. Even if, that love was only from herself...
The sounds of the rivers rushing, made its way to her ears and provided her anxieties with a temporary and fixated cure. For a few minutes she just stood there, lost, away from all time, and matter and worry.
Slowly, her mind began to turn from the solution that lay before her, just beyond the edge of her feet. To other possibilities. Endless, myriads of possibilities. Ones she hadn't fully discovered or thought out in full upon.
And though she felt the firmness of her resolve shake before the bewitching tantalizations of hope, to be a sign of pitiful weakness towards her initial determinations.
As that desire diminished. She began to think herself the better for it. Slowly, and bitterly, yet not without hope. The waters she watched, ever running forward in that climactic stream. That carried on, past the obstacles of great stones and logs and brush in their way. Was more and more of what she too wanted to become.
And as she gradually took that first step back, away from that ledge, with the bright call of a new purpose set within her heart. The fear she had once experienced seemed to all melt away.
For it was within that transfixation, being so lost within the sirens call of that enigmatic riverbed, with the vast array of its promises, and soothing march of its melody. That something else was lost unto her entirely for astute devotion to its mighty personification.
And what had melted from her heart, was replaced with a thick lacquer of vile and oozing dread unlike anything she had known before. As the gentle clasp of a hand, fell upon her shoulder. And with no more effort than that of opening or closing a door. Had sent her careening towards the strong river she wished that she could become.
She did what she could, to turn. With what little balance she had left, to see the face of the one who had decided upon a whim, to do that which she could not do herself.
And there it was, the face of a stranger, a familiar look within the smile he was leaving her with. Not the face of her abuser. But a smile of cruelty, all too much the same.
Her hand reached out as the clouds rushed past her vision, as if there were some chance they would form into a rope for her to stop the plummeting of her fall.
An indistinguishable pain seared through her back, as she coughed up blood, and her eyes once again began to blur. A sharp edge of stone protruding where her breast had once been. And her eyes never left the face of that smiling man, who only seemed to lean closer, and revel in the perverse monstrosity the creation of his hands had wrought.
And as she lay there. Cold, in fear, unable to even breathe her last. She saw that face grimace into that same twisted look of being disgraced, by their own boredom. As the half-blurred image slowly shuffled itself away, across the other side of the bridge. On a road she would never take home...
