So I kept myself occupied by the banks
of Styx, among the skeletons
and skulls of what were once mortals,
who now lay on these riverbanks,
long forgotten and long dead.
I had only lived five years.
And this was how my new childhood
began – full of warnings and old bones.
Abandonment
On the third day of sitting on the banks
I began to think all was lost
and that I had been cast aside
and forgotten.
That now that my mother had left
no one else would ever speak to me.
And talking to the dead was pointless
because what could they even say to help?
I was a lost child.
Perhaps I belonged
nowhere now. Not even here.
Perhaps that was why it happened.
Why the spirit-filled water
of the river began to beckon me.
It asked me to come closer,
for it had a tale I would like to hear.
The whispers filled the cave,
persistent, soft, like invisible hands
pulling me towards the edge.
And I covered my ears
but their voices still filtered in.
