The Punishment of Lust

The breath of the sun as it rises doesn’t warm me, but it is a welcome change to the daggers of the night.

The sharp winds don’t feel so bad when you can hear the birds’ quivering tweets too.

What I wouldn’t do to swap places with them now. The aching pain that gnaws at my stiff bones could be released, if only I could steal the birds’ wings…

They too might be paralysed if they housed my mind, but I couldn’t give that up; my mind is the only thing I have left in my control.

Soft moans flow through the breeze occasionally. I think they must be from other women suffering the same melancholic existence as I am. Just as soon as I hear their whimpers, they fall silent.

Paralysed by their own fragile vessels I imagine.

I haven’t moved an inch since I awoke to this nightmare. Around me I can feel the wet chills of old snow. Each night it freezes, and each morning it thaws enough to sink my limbs further into its bowels. I am becoming part of it with each passing second – as though I am in danger of becoming last years forgotten snowman.

What cruel creature could have dealt us this fate, knowing we are here together but cannot share our experience.

The chill of their frosty skin radiates into their surrounding moulds, and I can feel them even through the snow. We live this waking dream beside one another, but none of us have ever laid eyes on the other.

At first, I had thought it all a dream. After all, how could one possibly accept this to be awake?

No, this is our wicked woken state.

Even though I am unable to tell you what came before this, I know there must have been something. Beautiful and satisfying, perhaps. For one, I know I could see.

Once I had a flash of an ethereal sunrise…

I remembered brimming with content for that slight moment, and there was a warmth. Not the same warmth I understood from a young sun but from another soul.

At once, the memory set my chest alight with a searing pain. I writhed around in my mind for any relief, unable to speak.

If I could, I would have begged for the easeful release of death. Anything to wriggle out of the merciless grip it had over me.

When the agony left me unable to visualise that sweet snippet of my old existence, the pain fell away as fast as the vision.

My time now is spent trying to exist without memories of what came before. Every time I can feel a flash of memory, the pain floods in.

Taking the place of blood, bile fills my heart and spreads its venom until I could almost scream. It is amazing how well you begin to forget when the memories cause such torment.

What came before must have been beautiful.

It had to be.

Otherwise, what would balance out this soulless existence?

The unwanted memories have one similarity. It is the tender warmth I feel each time from that person beside me.

I wonder if they feel the same pain as I, now? Maybe that’s what binds me to these visions.

If I would have stayed in those places I try to forget, maybe I wouldn’t have to endure this glacial simulation.

Avoiding those mental keepsakes saves me agony.

But with every new sun I become numb. That is where I find myself floating with the nightingales’ songs, creating new memories that feel less torturous.

The new images in my mind are lonelier and certainly less colourful, however if this is all I can muster in this weakened state...

Maybe a birdsong will keep me awake.