***
so I wrote in here again
not for a dead woman from witch school
but because I wanted to, for me,
and because a bit of my brain believed
if I didn’t write something down
it hadn’t happened,
and, like,
of course it had
but
someday
no one would know it had
and that feels about the same.
And, like,
that made me wonder
how many ages of history
began
with unrecorded acts
such as a seven-year-old peasant
cosplaying
and getting mistaken for the queen,
or some
worker
building up a house
that changed the lay of the street
so somebody couldn’t drive as fast
in their ambulance
and somebody died
who otherwise
would’ve formed
an oppressive senate–
how many
invisible hands, invisible faces, silent words
govern the tickings of today’s epochs?
Maybe I’m not the first to wonder that.
But I am the first (recorded as so)
to find the fate strings,
and the first
to laugh at them.
See, I shouldn’t have found them.
After seven years
of trying to find them
and failing,
of working and listening and hunting,
I gave up
then right after that
stumbled
straight into their
home.
So apparently, what they say about
finding things you’re not looking for
is sort of true
because I was just
in a realm that advertised excellent oatmeal
and late sunrises,
I was just
trying to cross a steaming field
and get out of the fog
so I moved toward something glowing
that I thought was
reflective water,
but I stepped
from the fog–
copper stick
crushing hot wheat stems
with flowers like embers–
and there they were.
Standing in a wooden frame
on a stone pillar
overlooking the boiling sea.
And yes, the string fates
before me
were definitely fate strings
and not just
camel hair
or someone’s magic lyre–
the wood frame glowed,
drawing my spirit like a moth;
the stone pillar
had carvings of creatures with giant hands and tiny necks
that wiggled;
the strings flickered like candle wicks
radiating aroma of honeyed ham;
and when the breeze of the blazing solar winds
plucked the strings,
they played the same note
as each other,
some piercing, buzzing tone
that struck
all fibers of my being
and tickled
the runes on my brain.
So I laughed.
***
Graveyard of Lullabies is available for free, now through January 1st on Smashwords!
Jordyn Saelor 