Story

Yearning for the old language of my blood, bone, skin.

Searching for my stone, my soil

stained with grief

splintered with joy.

Echoes, wistful, reverberate a desire in me.

Layers of my past, senses, corrupt my present

force me toward a hard and piercing future.

But mollify too with soft promises.

I mourn the tanned, weathered experiences, pieces of myself.

I strain to hold them tight around me like protection against wind.

I seek out rivers, streams and ponds

forge through elemental forests

rejoice in the leaves’ breath harsh and tender

brush against walls, stone, foundations dense with histories

push along through familiar unfamiliar streets.

Forced to make choices, take paths one way only.

The present infiltrates, shoves and urges me forward

cuts into viscous layers of the past.

Here I am: child, girl, woman.

I am the storyteller.

I demand the past bind itself to me and keep with me in the present.

I am the story

I will not disappear.

Words and Picture (C) Carmit Kordov

Please visit Carmit Kordov Words and Pictures (https://www.facebook.com/carmitkordovwordsandpictures/ ) for more poetry, photography, writing and cultural content that veers towards Magic Realism.

This poem appeared in Corpse Roads (https://folkhorrorrevival.com/folk-horror-revival-corpse-roads/), a Wyrd Harvest Press book (https://folkhorrorrevival.com/wyrd-harvest-press/).