Once you've been to hell and back | Teen Ink

Once you've been to hell and back

August 8, 2013
By Hurricanes BRONZE, ?, Other
Hurricanes BRONZE, ?, Other
1 article 0 photos 0 comments

“once you’ve been to hell and back”
i.
I was always dressed in white before he happened.
Knee-length slips with no shape. Mother's eternal summer child.

ii.
The hole I fell into was not his first hole. He is a hunter with the patience of death.
He would have waited forever for the moment I accepted the inevitable.
Eventually I stopped watching where I stepped.

iii.
The first seed I tasted only relief that the hunger was over.
The second seed was sweet guilt, disappointment that I hadn't held out.
The third froze me, burned like decay.
The fourth and fifth were freedom.
The sixth was power.

iv.
As soon as you enter death starts seeping into your bones like frost.
He might have been different once but now even his eyes are nothing but cold.
This cold has frozen my bones into steel.

v.
I have never known winter.
The seasons play out the epic of my marriage bed.
I feel the rot come through the ground,
but all I know of the world above is warmth.

vi.
Someday, when he is old and tired and too cold to continue
I will wrap my dead summer hands around his neck and take the crown from his head.
Death with be mine.
Until then I wait.


The author's comments:
Deadicated to the downtrodden women and the patient goddesses, the female masias waiting for their time.

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This article has 4 comments.


Mckay ELITE said...
on Aug. 16 2013 at 7:06 pm
Mckay ELITE, Somewhere, Virginia
146 articles 0 photos 2230 comments

Favorite Quote:
"The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do."
—Apple’s “Think Different” commercial, 1997
“Crazy people are considered mad by the rest of the society only because their intelligence isn't understood.”
― Weihui Zhou

I love the empowerment this poem gives off to the reader, even though it's very dark. To me, it's a very intriguing poem. The title captivated me at first. I like the format. Congrats on the Editors' Choice. 

on Aug. 16 2013 at 6:08 pm
PeriwinkleFallsSoftly SILVER, Princeton, New Jersey
7 articles 0 photos 12 comments

Favorite Quote:
"Some people have lives, some people have music." - John Greene

Sounds like you're right. Just seems odd to me that the numbering and everything cropped up right after my poem went up. But the Persephone thing, I can see it clearly now.

on Aug. 16 2013 at 4:09 pm
bookmouse BRONZE, Chapel Hill, North Carolina
1 article 90 photos 251 comments
I read Planes, and it doesn't seem to have a similar format to this poem. What do you mean? Also, this poem is very nice. It took me a moment to connect the poem to details of the story of Persephone, but once I did it made more sense. The last lines about her taking death remind me of a myth that I have been told predates the more common one that does not include Hades. In the older myth Persephone goes down part of the year to clear things up because it is chaotic and disorganized, in it there is no Hades or other god ruling the underworld -- she has to do it alone.

on Aug. 16 2013 at 11:47 am
PeriwinkleFallsSoftly SILVER, Princeton, New Jersey
7 articles 0 photos 12 comments

Favorite Quote:
"Some people have lives, some people have music." - John Greene

Your ideas are great, although it seems as if you copied the format of my poem, Planes. Sorry if I'm wrong about that.