Spring Peepers

Their voices bounced back

and forth amongst the birches.

The swampy water

sucked my feet

into a silty stew.

I waded through the water

waiting to hear their chanting cease.

The end was near

but not near enough

and with each muddy,

sloppy step I grew tired.

Everything spinning,

churning around me,

sending me into a silt-laden

crescendo.

The bark of the birches

slipped though my grasp

and spat splinters into my palms.

The blood mixed with the silt

and the water

and the chanting

until everything bled into another

and all I could bear to do was let my tongue

unfurl and howl into the obsidian night.

The menagerie of our blending

ended when my knees buckled

into the water

and the silt rose

and consumed me.