Picture It & Write: Bitter Sorrow

Bitter sorrow is the taste on my tongue,

Strong southries caress my cheek.

Way up here I can reach the marshmallow clouds,

Far below the sea hurls itself angrily against the steel pillars.

 

Up here I can see everything, feel everything and think everything,

The scarlet spray of his blood splatters across my mind,

A deep shudder reveberates down my spine,

Like the impact I felt from driving the hammer in his skull.

 

Again the wind strokes me, taunts me, welcomes me into it’s open arms,

I can sense the devious flash in it’s movements,

Still I find myself standing on the edge, it’s arms waiting…

Waiting to let me slip into the turmoil beast bellowing below.

Picture It & Write: After A Hard Day

My offering for this week’s Picture It & Write is a bit late I think, I spent a lot of time pondering on what to write about and here’s the result. The link to the prompt is here, hope you enjoy and constructive criticism is welcome.

Cold water trickled down her back, wriggling its way into the maze of elaborate scars which crisscrossed like busy city roads. Needles of painful stinging prickled a fresh wound which ran from her shoulder down. She reached for the antiseptic potion she’d concocted from wild plants and low-cost ingredients from the alchemy store. Carefully she dabbed small amounts of the valuable lotion onto her wound and hissed in agony through clenched teeth.

Working as a slave was pulling her down, sapping her slowly diminishing strength, she knew she was born a slave and that she would die a slave simply because she looked different to the locals. She longed for the chains of slavery to be destroyed and the welcoming arms of freedom to envelop her. She wished for it, dreamed of it, all the time in knowledge that it was impossible. The arms of exemption she prayed for were waiting over the other side of the vast grey body of the sea, a body impossible to persuade or move.

Carefully she lifted herself out of the large wooden bucket that the slaves used as a tub, tendrils of pain weaved their way through her body as she did. There was a polite knock at the door, she wrapped herself in a ragged towel and signalled for the person to enter.

Surprise erupted inside her, followed by a bubbling anger which had remained dormant for so long. She stared into those cold gun-metal eyes and felt the dying embers inside her glow rebelliously one last time.