inspired by Edvard Munch, "Two Women on the Shore"
we, she and I, my depression, together linger in those lonely days. she is weak, and she leans on me, so heavy against my lungs, so heavy, so heavy. I think, she has walked so many miles just to get here to another moment, and another, and another, like our steps. Steps turn into days; we trudge onward.
she and I, turn to face the past, which can be long in these lonely days, her face carries the weight of it, and she is too tired and too young, but too tired, too tired to see the past and wonder what might have been - It stares back at her face; unflinching; we turn, as do the days; we trudge onward.
we are not sisters, nor are we lovers, but something else, perhaps the same person, in two different bodies, in two different souls. together we hold a feeling of (not) love, and of something different altogether. Perhaps understanding, with knowledge that the world is indifferent to the suffering in our bones, with knowledge that we, she and I, are destined for the same journey. We have walked here for a purpose: we are going to the shore.
a leaf can cling to the tree that keeps it alive, but the wind will inevitably take it away, It will fall to the earth, to be stepped on, to crumble, to die, to be beautiful. a leaf can cling but that never lasts. which one of us is the leaf, she asks? she is fading fast, and I hold her. I am not sure - surely you are the one dying who clings to me, I am the one living, yes? then why do my lungs hurt, she asks? I see I am crushing her in my grip, she cannot breathe, she turns thin and I am clinging, clinging, clinging, like the leaf on that tree, I am screaming, don't leave me, Her hands batter and cling to my arms that crush her to me, and she is clinging, clinging, clinging, for her life, on my arms, she is crying, don't leave me she cries. we mourn. she lives. we keep on walking.
We are at the shore now. It pushes us away, but we feel it, pulling us deeper into the sand. The water can read the mind too, it seems. Can a leaf survive in water, she asks? I don't respond. She knows. It is so beautiful.the water. We can cling to what kills us but that never lasts, and in the water, I think I love her. Good. I throw her in. She does not fight. She falls towards the earth, light as the leaf. I crumble. She dies. We were beautiful.


















