The Woman in the Woods

 

The Woman in the Woods 

a piece of poetic prose 

by delphie levy jones 

I see you within the water. A face I used to know. 

Now the mud lies dormant but breathes when it rains. Footsteps carve the soil, but damp washes away the tracks. The prints are gone.

It doesn’t want you here.

Earth remains in a slumber so deep that only the shivering oaks remind you of its pulse.

Is it calm or is it waiting?

Disintegrating leaves and acorns crumble as the storm weeps in and welts hit. Inhale. The air smells moist. The dew retires as the frost begins to settle. The moon rays splinter the forest floor through the cracks in the treetops. Dusk arrives. It’s so quiet. You wish it was silent. Echoes of flutters and distant snaps warn you it’s coming. It’s close. Exhale.

You grew up in these woods. Down where the falls feed the thirst of the moss. The quarry surrounded by ferns and stone made a home for you, once. You know your way but you’ll never know these lands. You can’t follow your footprints back. They’re already gone. The blurriness thickens and you just feel so lost. Are you alone here? Drip. Drip. Drip. A rotten musk now taints the wind, bleeding up and up into your nostrils. It knocks you sick. Mushrooms sprout at the roots of the pines and you know death lingers. Deep, buried within the dirt. Like tumorous weeds they grow and spread and infect all they can claw. Inhale. Rot. Mould. It stinks. A metallic tinge stains the tip of your tongue as you taste the poison the forest feasts on. Wilting. Dying. Yearning. 

Whispering, leave.

Twilight births a sticky mist which crawls close to the ground. You ingest the smoke, it tingles as it absorbs into your skin. Becoming one with it. Melting. Exhale. The mud slurps as it eats you up, gargles you down whole. When you’ve been devoured, the land boils like magma, seeping until blisters heal and the predator rests. Squelch, squelch, hush.

There used to be birds. Swallows. Starlings. Owls. But the creatures came, and the scratching broke their sleep. The howling drew them out. Feathers, beaks and bellies ripped from their nests, innocents morphing into hunted prey. Flocks became few, branches now bare. Stillness is a heavy word when you know you’re being watched. Judged. Waited for. Inhale. Now a gulp feels like glass. A knot in your throat and saliva swells and vomit whirls in the pit of your stomach readying itself to spew. You stare ahead.

It stares back.

Your outer shell cracks, your bones feel wet and sloppy. Shattering. Crumbling. F a d i n g. Still holding that breath. Still. Paralysed, sinking into the soil. Has it done this to you? Or is it your fear? If your fear response is freezing you sure as hell won’t survive here.

Its eyes are barely eyes. Hollow like craters into a veiny abyss, sore and leaking. Not tears. Not blood. It oozes evergreen. Thistles protruding and brambles angling out, a monster contorted and formed from the crust of the earth. A deformity spat out by its own habitat. Scattered with ashes and crumbs of dirt festering in the crevices of its membrane, its body a patchwork of bits and filth and muck. Like a weeping carcass, it loiters, crooked and glaring. An eroding corpse, famished and hungry. It likes you looking. It feeds off your fear and next, your tears. Oh, they would quench its thirst. It’s parched, poor thing. Not lonely though, no. It likes being alone. Do you relate?

It wants you gone. Consumed.

It mirrors you. A breath in, gasping lungs gobbling at the musty air, and a shaky breath out, its skeletal frame mimicking up and down. Something happens. You’re not ready for it. When it happens you heave. You heave, gag, spit. And then you run.

A smile. It smiled. And now bounds after you, skinny limbs stretched and writhing, coming and coming and coming, lurching and leaping, nearly reaching- You do something next which surprises me, and I think, only then, you might have it in you to survive. You

SCREAM!

A tortured and sacrificial wail. Feminine in its anguish and mighty in its cry. You sway the treetops in ways they haven’t for a while. You bring a breeze back to the stagnant wasteland. It’s not sour nor spoiled, but raw and fresh and wild. The beast looks at you. You’ve confused it. You’ve given it a feeling and thoughts and its crippled bloodstream starts to gush. In its finger it could crush you up, soak you in and burp you out. Its acid could burn you into a ball of grinded remains. It was going to. But now? It scutters back. You were small and soft, easy to break and sculpt. Your flesh was tender and mmm, how it had craved to chew you up, eyes rolled back in ecstasy as it chomped through to your soul, the part most supple and sweet. It feeds off the feelings of the innocent. Not now though. Your scream was mournful, it yelled for all you have lost and it yelled for all you could be. It was a sob, seized in a cacophony of coughing, wheezing rage. A beautiful orchestra screaming I am a woman and you will not fuck with me.

Leave. The words you don’t voice but let float in wind, lifted by the dust and prickling at the air like the threat of a storm. Your hairs stand on edge, you feel static and itchy. It does too. Blackening clouds yawn and groan, spewing a downpour of thunder and rain and nature knows you have the power now. You grew up in these woods, and you don’t intend on leaving. The shower pelts your skin, the punches wounding you with their force, and god, its cleansing. Purifying you as you purge in your moans. Grieving. Haunting.

You stare at it. Are you about to tell it again? Don’t tell it again. Don’t you dare repeat yourself.

Its smile is gone. It looks upon you with fear still, but now sorrow. The hollow of its eyes has brimmed with something fruitful. Flora. Its tear ducts fertile with budding shoots, stalks and petals. Its arms and legs stiffen becoming stems, expanding and growing before submerging into the ground. Nectar, pollen and melancholy. Its smile is different now. It pities you. And what’s worse? You’re not sure. You belong on this earth but not to be pitied. The forest is yours now. You’ll make sure nothing pities you ever again. You stare at the creature that once was. It's become one with the earth. There’s nothing left of it but a cluster of shrubs, mushrooms, seeds. You saw yourself in the monster.

You still do.

Why is your heart sinking? Why do you feel so small after being so brave? You pity it, don’t you? It was going to kill you, for fucks sake. But you’re a woman, I suppose. Bound to your shame. Remorse. Guilt. Let it cut you, bleed you, hurt you and still you’ll nurse it like a baby born from your womb. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up.

Its not innate, you know. You can reject it. If you let it linger, it’ll grow and come back biting.

You stare at the seeds it’s left behind and I know what you’re thinking. I know what you’ll do- when I’m not looking. I’ll allow it though, because I suppose, this is how you survive. How you cope, endure, breathe.

Inhale.  

So I turn my back, and I know you’ll stay kneeling there, replanting its seeds.