To The River

I’ve been feeling a different feeling lately

Something I can’t explain

I’ve always had this liking to water
River, ocean, stream or rain.

Want to leave here
These buildings, these roads, these houses
Want to travel all the way there
Where people collect little seashells in pouches.

Perhaps I want to stay there forever
Build myself a home to live in solitude
Or maybe I want to travel
Years and months with crabs and cockatoos.

It’s pretty normal I’ve heard
Wanting to run away
I’ve heard they do it quite often
All those wee-little feelers, I dare say

They felt suffocated I heard
Not from the air, but the people
They had a fear, they said
From the diesels, the weasels and the evil

Perhaps this is what I would have written
A couple or two years back
But if you ask me now, I'll show you all the
Grey words written on the plaque

Because the rivers where I wanted to
Step on the glossy pebbles
And flick palmfuls of water into the air
Were uprooted by the devils

And the salt scented sea in which
I wanted to cool my legs was
Teared down by the
Those freckled men with scars.

I believe I believe I believe
And it kills me to be at the back
With hands on my neck
Legs paralysed, cracked.

It was hazy all those years
When I dreamed and saw
Those mermans, those pixies
Goodness I withdraw.

Because it is suddenly so clear
Below the water
For the first time it feels like there is
No gnawing, no slaughter.

So I beg you
To take me down
Down to the river

To drown.

𓆩ᥫ᭡𓆪

I've actually been wanting to write this poem for a long time now, since I heard the song Down To The River by Welshly Arms. I've been procrastinating this blogpost for so long now because I wanted it to be imperfectly perfect with the correct balance of calm and chaos.

It was a challenge since I wanted and expected a lot from this poem. I wanted this poem to start out positive to turn into something twisted, perhaps not evil, but something between grisly and grim. 

And I wanted to write something mystical but also real. Something that made sense, and something that also did not.

I do realise that I'm speaking in riddles, but whatever I wrote about is exactly what I felt after I finished the final edit of this poem.

I hope you don't relate to the last lines of the poem.

If you do, I wish I could give you a hug.