I haven't written poetry in a very long time and for bloody good reason, I wasn't very good at it... but... (And there's always a but isn't there?) I read the book Circe by Madeline Miller and was inspired. Circe is a book about the Gods, mortals and the fates that bind them all together.
Paper Boats
We are but paper boats in a storm. Folded by cruel children, by feckless Gods, by The Fates. Who care nothing of making worthy our bones for sea. The Fates who lure us from safe shores with whispered promises, with playful taunts. Hands open, hands waiting to shape, to crease, to pleat. How their song carries on the currents, how it swells in our souls. We dip our toes into the idea of greatness, of our greatness. And they smile at us and cast the bait, ‘All the world it waits for you’. So we charge at the tide, at the world itself we charge. Squealing as the first wave hits, drowning in salt, not knowing that was as sweet as it will ever be again. Deeper they rumble, deeper still. So we dive head first in the blue, into the promises that never land. The sea is too strong, too wild. We plead with The Fates, ‘we will drown’ but they smile and fold still. Their gaze had already left us, their new tricks already half-formed. We are but paper boats in a storm now.