everything feels more scary
in the dark.
gripping a longsword twice their size,
a lonely adventurer stumbles
towards the mouth of a cave;
its gaping entrance empty
and endless.
do you think that Amelia Earhart
knew that she was going to die the day
she set off?
timid adventurer,
stepping shakily into the gloom
nerves flickering like fluorescent lighting
bile tides in the back of their throat, back and forth, in and out
they relish the feeling,
the frantic ping-pong machine of their mind
whirrs
and chimes
and screams as they
wander those long-abandoned caves.
their assigned task:
kill the monster that inhabits these winding caverns,
save the forest,
et cetera.
hasty, their mouth waters
at the thought of their payment awaiting them
outside
they freeze at the sound of chains
clinking, scraping against stone
and they ready their sword.
they close their eyes.
they had never gotten used
to the sound of bones crunching as they broke
and way that a blade
becomes entangled
in its victims.
the adventurer leaps forward,
anticipating glory.
a scream rattles their senses,
inhuman sounding
yet they recognize it immediately.
they open their eyes
just as their lover's body
bound in chains
crumples to the ground
in front of them,
longsword embedded
in their fragile body.
how does it feel to stand
looking at a wound so fresh you could taste it
you caused it
and yet the adventurer knows that it is too late.
they watch as organs blended into
bad chorizo pour from a mutilated, empty husk
of a person that was their entire life.
how does it feel
to hurt the one that you love the most
irreparably
but still believe that somehow
everything will be fine?
the adventurer knows now,
seated at the corpse's side
a useless bodyguard
they can't bear to see the worms
beginning to multiply within their lover's belly
and they close their eyes again,
just like before.
the adventurer rots there.
there had been no monster
lurking in these caves
until they arrived.
YOU ARE READING
the archives - a poetry portfolio
PoesíaA light buzzing distracts you from whatever you're doing. There is an old, weathered monitor on a table next to you. You could have sworn that it had just *appeared* out of thin air. Out of curiosity, you stare at it for a moment. The screen flicke...
