Natalie Turner
Feels like the same old plot. You’ll
grab the claw and run, I’ll burn
away the web and
start a new adventure.
Mom brings us back to Bleak Falls Barrow
but we’ve played this game before
and I know how it ends—
our bodies thrown against the stone,
bone by bone broken
A hysteria we are to bear
Alone.
Drip, the leaking roof
of caves a thousand times wandered, plundered
sheets of repetition, cracked doors, lit candles
A tunnel as dark as my room on the second floor
Windowless. Treasureless, this barrow,
when we’ve seen greater enchantments
its Keeper stranger, simpler than
a spider. More violence with fewer legs. Mother—
All I need is the lowly cottage ‘cross the river
Anything
But the caves.
Anything, please.
***
Natalie Turner is a broadcasting and English student at Western Kentucky University, where her works have appeared in Zephyrus and the Talisman. Her poetry placed 3rd in the 2018 Flo Gault Poetry Contest. She hosts a radio show on Revolution 91.7.