we are not so different after all, in the face of tragedy

cardigan. 08/21/21

you cannot survive losing yourself or another unless you are left the time to mourn. give yourself time to grieve, or it will swallow you whole, a pit of ravens swarming in your stomach, waiting for the right time to strike, to claim what is theirs. they scream with the wails of the cocytus, but , friend, my creatures are not always to be trusted. you will feel like the dammed river, all those wails trapped inside you, and letting go will feel like dying. trust me, i know-gods cannot die, but we know the feeling of fading into something that is only a whisper of what we are, the last ember in the fire pit after the storm.

but i am not the spark but the coals, and you must live in their darkness, brood and smoke until you can emerge blazing again. so let go, let your feathered beasts unleash their cries, claw their way down your cheeks until you bleed with the sadness that i do. you do not know true pain until you have finally let go-sometimes you must let the darkness consume you, the mists place a shroud over your eyes, for only then can you see clearly what is left, what you still have to live for.

spread your blackened wings and call to me, i will come. we will meet in the fog between living and dying, the purgatory of the human realm, and you will understand that the night is a better friend than the day can ever be. yes, it is poison, it burns your throat when you swallow, it gulps up the very twins your ancestors worshiped, the same sun and moon you still cower beneath today, but it is faithful. when will the dark ever turn and say ‘today, i will be light. today i would like to be the stars instead of the space between them’? it will not, because i know who i am, the salt of my tears is my fountain of youth, the dust in my hair my oldest friend, the weight of the world’s sadness upon my soul is no burden to me, but a comfort-we are not the only ones who feel this way.

grieving is the only way to overcome grief itself, giving into the darkness is the only way to the light that once was yours. you mortals cling to your lights, your electricity sustains you and you can never understand true darkness, the soul’s eternal night, until a power outage hits you in the form of tragedy. my brethren cannot know this pain like we can.

but i was there at the beginning, when the world was not yet a place, let alone one of sorrow, when the only sadness was my own. but when humans crawled from the earth and their tears watered the ground above my head, a new feeling filled my lungs. these fragile creatures understood that misery was more than a single lightning strike, gone as quick as it had come. you understand that it is a cloak we carry around our shoulders wherever we go. it is something we try to escape, but we can also hide in its depths, burrowing into the darkest parts of it. and when the earth is alight with a fire of misunderstanding and contempt, the darkness waits for you. it is a safe haven.

so, dear mortal, sometimes it is not ‘stay strong for us, all this will . it could be oh so much worse’. sometimes, when it feels like there is nothing left for you here, you must pay an old friend a visit. sometimes, sadness is throwing yourself to the ground, sobbing, wailing until it feels your very soul may spill out of your mouth, until night lays its tender hands upon your back and tells you you have made it through another hard day.

i am misery, i am eternal night, i am achlys, and i say you are allowed to grieve.

prompt: achlys-greek goddess of poison, misery & eternal night; often described as the very first being to exist, before even chaos. in mythology, she is sometimes the personification of sorrow, sometimes the most that shrouds the eyes of mortals (often in death)