Nightmare Magazine, Issue 138 (March 2024) by Wendy N. Wagner

Author:Wendy N. Wagner
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Adamant Press
Published: 2024-02-28T00:09:44+00:00

©2024 by Fatima Taqvi.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Fatima Taqvi is a Pakistani writer living in London. She has words appearing in Strange Horizons, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Fusion Fragment and Fantasy Magazine. She can be found on Twitter @FatimaTaqvi and at www.fatimataqvi.com.

To learn more about the author and this story, read the Author Spotlight

The Let Go

E. Catherine Tobler | 230 words

* * *

CW: self-harm, bodily harm.

* * *

This poem began as flash fiction, and was then whittled even smaller—perhaps ironic, given its subject. I wrote this to explore how we change in a relationship, how it isn’t always healthy or best for us—or necessarily consensual. We give pieces of ourselves away, we have pieces taken, we cut ourselves down to nothing in the name of love, and it is both a horror and a revelation.

—ECT

I was not born

In this field of grass

but am anchored

By your leaving—

Called, you said

To a higher purpose

To a higher being.

What was it

To be called—

To be under such

Demand.

I have never been

Someone’s choice,

Have never been

Called to purpose.

I was not born

In this field of grass,

But know what it is

To let everything go.

The summer into the autumn

The autumn into the winter

The grass withers

The way my hands

Have withered

Away—

Called to purpose

So that I may hold to nothing

And let everything go, always.

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