Thanks! yeah this topic hit close to home for me.
1 Like
I’m sorry to hear that this topic hits so close to home (really, not in the lip service way… ha). But the fact that you can take your experiences and turn them into beautiful words means that you have the ability to help so many people. Thank you for your participation and for showing how we can use language to portray such strong emotion.
There is some really beautiful stuff in here! I agree “whispered on wasted breath” is a real highlight, and also the way you have captured yourself, or at least the speaker, as an empty vessel, neither smiling nor crying. Beautiful!
2 Likes
Goodness I suspected today might be a tearjerker. Absolutely beautifully written, with consistent and very powerful imagery - well done!
2 Likes
Through reading a huge amount of books on grief and loss i think this is a good summary.
Grief is praising the thing you have lost
And praise is grieving the thing that you have and one day will lose
1 Like
Passing pedestrians peer over the wooden church gates in their morbid fascination. For me, the world is muted but for a tinnitus of nausea. Each compassionate offering of condolence is a thorn of acceptance, chilling the air in the shadow of lost companionship.
3 Likes
The tinnitus of nausea is really nice concept! Concise and meaningful good job!
That rubbernecking image at the beginning is so realistic. And yeah, the so nauseated that your ears ring is really cool imagery. And hearing the “I’m sorry’s” making it all real. Great job.
I float like a ship with no captain, drifting between the crashing waves of pews. Symphonic haunting encircles the room like fog, burning and stinging my eyes. Shit, I’m crying it’s not the ghosts tumbling out from celestial pipes, strangling me with their shadowed hands, no it’s more like my black dress is made of shrinking lead and it will squeeze me until my soul pops out. I must have tripped and fallen because a bear trap has me by the neck and your face dangles from it, swinging back and forth with each wayward current. I clutch on to you for dear life, tearing my fingers on cold metal, lost in a tide that pulls me on and on down the aisles. I see a lifeboat up ahead but it smells of death, shiny and wooden and smooth, yet its only passenger is a phantom of you.
5 Likes
Really nice imagery here maddie!
I really like this line in particular
I love your description of a locket with a picture or some remnant of the loved one. I take it as a widow who is already afraid of being lonely (maybe a tight dress to attract a suitor) while at the same time knowing that her true love is gone and she’ll never have that feeling again. Don’t know if that’s what you were going for, but I love the narrative that came to mind. Wonderful job.
1 Like
I really like how you have mapped this metaphor onto the setting - it gives me a feeling of sea-sickness that really captures how one feels at a loved one’s funeral.
1 Like
I can feel my heart trying to beat out of my chest. I place my palm firmly on my heart. “Please Stop,” I tell myself. My body feels out of control and completely dis-regulated. I feel wet but chilly, out of breath and lightheaded. An uninvited hand touches my shoulder. “Please stop” this time a discreet whisper. I try to escape the scent of lilies by walking across the room. No use. I close my eyes and visualize a soothing beach, with the sound of the waves crashing and birds chirping. I can feel my heart slowing. Someone brushes against me, forcing me out of escape… “I’m sorry for your loss.” Their breath smells like old meat, and their eyes look dull and pitying. I hold my breath and force a nod, while pressing my lips together tightly so I don’t scream.
2 Likes
It’s good but abit tell-y. I think this quote might help “Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.” for instance why do you feel wet? are the clouds grieving above you? or chilly? does the cold air slap you in the face leaving your cheeks red? or out of breath or lightheaded? because your lungs are spent from expelling empty thank you’s to people.
You’re on the right track but I feel like you can dig down a little deeper!
Sorry if thats a bit much! Just keep at it, keep exploring and most importantly keep writing!
1 Like
I feel damp from the sweat, because my body is dysregulated. My nervous system is freaking out, and I’m on the verge of a panic attack. This one was a little more difficult for me. I wanted to show what it felt like in my body. I’m struggling to grasp show vs tell, and sensory vs descriptive…I’m going to keep at it! Thanks for the feedback and encouragement!
1 Like
It’s been a little while but happy to get back into it!
Pastor preaches paddling into the waves of the Black Sea, as we congregate in the church where just last week his son was baptized. Cries echo all around, a merry-go-round of sound, disoriented while trying to hold in my lunch, my eyes a cloudy sky. Eyelids closed, a sleeping beauty, and I can almost hear the beat of his chest and see the belly rising, but it’s wishful thinking because the cousin of sleep has arrived. An open casket reveals the baggage left behind as we hold our breath. The smell is rotten as we try to make sense of the piles of trash sitting in the suitcase.
3 Likes
Glad to see you back. We all have to take breaks occasionally, and what a subject to come back to! Ha ha. The “waves of the black sea” is a strong image. The “merry-go-round” of sound is an amazing image because it shows time and motion through audible sense. The hidden hope of looking at a made-up corpse is really a neat image because I think most of us can identify with that. Looking at something that looks so uncannily real, but knowing it is not. The rotten smell at the end and the knowing it’s time to move on is a great way to end it. Well done.
Cars zoom past no doubt late to return to pushed back emails and soon starting meetings. Humboldt Ave.’s Wednesday is on schedule as gardeners work on their farmer’s tan in between the occasional café buzzing to life in mid-day warmth. I think the weather didn’t get today’s memo. The elderly serve as reminders as I calculate my statistical misfortune with each one in a hypothetical morbid version of Blackjack Card Counting–+21 years, +5 years, +33 years. Guess the game is rigged, I don’t see any minuses; they’ve already left the table. Mom puts us on scout duty for Halbert…or did she say Hubert, Hunart? On the second pass, we find it across from a dive bar reeking of spilled Tuesday specials that we’ll get the griever’s discount at later—they know the drill. I hold the heavy door, a faux kindness, as my family enters a battleground of flowers and formaldehyde. Thick oak stands over budget carpet squares barring us from entry until a young man in a practiced voice gives us his monologue. A stitched lifeless corpse lies cold under a hand-sewn blanket. My shoulders tense in expectation as I seek out the exits, waiting for the cameras to pop out with my real dad and announce the cruel joke. Only sobs fill the empty minutes. My stomach somersaults when no doors open, no cameras pop in. Under that ornate quilt is my dad after-all.
1 Like
First half of this is very tell-y, I used this quote in this very thread before but I think its a great reference point “Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.” However! that being said from
this onwards you really start to show the scene of this funeral. The line “Only sobs fill the empty minutes” is a nice, really shows the hollow feeling that can come with grief.
My naked feet stabbed by the gravels on the burning road as we walked towards the cremation ground, our hearts heavier than the body we carried. The priest started chanting his mantras in a monotonous rhythm, having recited the same thing uncountable times as he we laid the body on the pile of irregular wood. My elder brother carried the torch, and the fire pounced on the pyre with a whoosh, the cackle of fire ringing throughout the ground as it creeped upwards consuming the body, the pervasive smell of burning flesh stirred my empty stomach. All my tears vaporised as the fire took it’s final form, an uncontrollable roar and dance on death, leaving just the taste of salt and ash.
2 Likes