Of Origins

I read about why people were condemned
to die once. Why we burst with life for the time
it takes a shooting star to jet across the skies
before being damned to an eternity of oblivion
or the afterlife or whatever you want to call it. 

The story goes like this: we used to be immortal.
Death didn’t exist for us. Not really. We boasted
great power and roamed the lands with two heads
and eight limbs. We were, each of us, two genders.
And then we got cocky. 

We thought we could overthrow Olympus and defy
the gods. So Zeus struck us down with his great
Thunderbolt, splitting each of us in two and dooming
us to scour the earth for that other half. He left us
forever incomplete, aching for that lost part. 

But he doesn’t give us much chance to find ourselves.
Death is our punishment. I doubt I have another half.
I don’t view my body as an empty vessel forever waiting
to fill that aching void. I have to be whole. Because stories
are just that: stories. 

And if I am whole, then I can’t be lost. I already have
all of me. Which is more than I can say for others in this city.
Reading the newspaper in this place is like watching people
live and die the way you would watch the stars. You lose
count when you blink. 

Untouched

Time drifts & blooms. When I close my eyes
I see the ripples in the water, spurred on by
eager toes & fingers. We skip stones tha
skitter & fade & drown. The water 

remains & we watch it move & never see
the end. Sometimes we let the water take
us. Press heels into the sand. Pluck flowers
from the vines. Tuck bursts of color behind 

our ears as we gaze up at a dimming sky
& hum a happy hello to the stars. We clasp
our hands together, fingers entwined in this
space we call our own, untouched. Alive. 

Glide across the water & dive into the murky
unknown. Let it bleed into our skin before the
slap of flesh grounds us. Before wet timelessness
slips from our grasp & we are left behind by our 
own brevity. 

What is my death but yours? Tucked beneath
the smear of your heated scribbles. Pressed into
the old bottle drifting aimlessly downstream.
Threaded in the shredded fibers of rope that seared 

our palms & dangled above the water’s surface
& once waited for us to jump. I swim in this
here & now until the colors swirl & the edges 

blur & the night sky melts into the water. 

What is your death but mine? Haunting my
veins & propelling me into this emptied future
as the world I know becomes a rippling,
distorted reflection, touched but alive, 

of what was & never was. What will
be. What always is. 

These Torn Tracks Mark Our Sins

Walk across the bruised skin of the city
now. Even in death, the land will not release  

its hold. Wander the tunnels where the ever-
growing mounds of flesh rot. Hover the borders’ 

edges. Float across the icy Lake to feel the city
huffing out life in short, gasping breaths,  

condemnations for witnessing the decay. Barely
recall the sin, while fixating on the time around it.  

Bustling, tourist-filled streets. Thriving restaurants.
Well-packed beaches. But then we ripped the bones  

from her body, and a blooming world slipped our grasp.
We tore out the city’s steely spine from the earth and  

tossed the severed pieces
back into her hands.

Author’s Biography

Meg Sipos holds a BFA and MFA in creative writing. Her work has appeared in MoonPark Review, Lammergeier Magazine, The Ghost Story, Quantum Shorts, Bath Flash Fiction, Liminality: A Magazine of Speculative Poetry, Welter, Dark Hearts: Tales of Twisted Love, 21st Century Ghost Stories: Vol. II, Futures, and Wyldblood Magazine. She's the co-founder of The Other Folk, a small media platform dedicated to the many faces of horror in film, art, music, and literature.