My seventh post in No F’s February.

Recording thoughts and writings with Anna Judd

I see the riders of despair cantering once more, getting ever closer on pale horses under a hollow moon that hangs like a noose in the night.

They don’t ride to the rhythms of that body, but to a schedule of their own dictation, coming on whims that only they see, but I feel so deeply. Their names are carved into my bones, for to name a thing is to have power over it, and to be named is to be held in thrall, and so they imprint their names in me.

So, my slide into their kingdom once more is assured, and I will slip under the surface of the Lake of Woe-Is-Me, silently and without resistance, for what good would it do to fight it, only increase the pain.

My mind becomes a cloud, heavy and unable to rain, no tears come to me, even in the saddest of times. I grip stoicism as though it were a rope that binds my mouth, preventing the screams that rubble within my ribs.

I put a light on, as though that would banish the riders, the hooves of their horses as quiet as the cloud that descends, muffled by the tying of rags. But I know they are coming just the same, the light no ward in the night to dissuade them from their task.

These late nights, with the wind howling outside, and the rattle of old steam heating pipes are the ghosts that fuel my mind, tearing down its walls and open ingthe gates to intruders. Despair needs no invitation to visit me, the waters of the lake rising under that hooked moon’s light as I feel the weight that is starting to settle.

I don’t know how to break this spell, this hex that makes intermittent visits, or keep these riders at bay, placing apples at the threshold to stall the horses no longer enough, for the riders are more than happy to dismount and walk the last few feet. Only too happy to place their hands upon me once here and drag me back, limp and sullen, to their kingdom with all the haste they can muster – and all I did was refresh their mounts with apples and give them sustenance and rest, all the faster to ride.

© Emma Steel

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