and you left bruises
deep and blue and imperfect
but invisible
About the Creator
Harriet Rogers
writer of words. gazer of stars.
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More stories from Harriet Rogers and writers in Poets and other communities.
smoke screen
I recently learned that you were high that morning when we climbed the hill to watch the sunrise over the town we are both trying to leave. I tell myself that it wasn’t personal but I struggle to separate the fact that in order to spend time with me you needed to be feeling something else, something otherworldly, because despite the fact that you told me I was made of the stars you couldn’t bear to be alone with my constellations lest you forget that you shouldn’t love them, because I know you did. But you preferred to blur the lines of whatever this was in the same way you blurred your focus that morning.
By Harriet Rogers3 years ago in Poets
The Salt in her Voice
The myth says mermaids sing to lure sailors to their death. But why? The ocean is huge. Only 5 percent has been discovered by man. Why would a creature of the sea with that much space to roam ever care about the fate of men on ships? The answer, as it turns out, is not a simple one at all. The truth about the myth is older than the tides. Long ago before the first ship ever cut across the surface, the sea made a pact with the sky. The sky would take the souls of the drowned. Anyone who died in storms or any quiet accidents of the deep would have their soul lifted upward to the Heavens while the bodies would remain below, feeding the oceans endless hunger. The greedy sea however wanted more souls than the sky would claim. So it created mermaids. It gave them beautiful voices woven from currents and moonlight. It commanded them to sing. "Bring forth the ones who float where they should sink." it instructed them. So they did. They never killed out of malice but out of obligation. They sung to summon, not to seduce. A mermaid's voice could loosen the tether between the body and soul, making any man step willingly into the water. The sea would take the body and the sky would take the soul. Balance maintained.
By Sara Wilson7 days ago in Fiction
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