Sunday in a Seven-Day War
by Natasha Bredle
I lost the battle on Sunday in a seven-day war.
Woke up with frosted lips, gauging
how to outrun the horizon ahead of me.
Dying to the world didn’t settle the score.
The other days faded away feverishly. I was stranded.
I stranded myself on Sunday in a seven-day war.
There was morning and evening. I reached out
my wrists for the ropes to be torn, stitches undone.
Skin captivates and is captured. But mine was freed,
fatefully released on Sunday in that seven-day war.
Walls fall down and are rebuilt. Violence sings a ballad,
but silence is the zenith. I wish I could be her,
in the aftermath, in the beginning, the sole
mediator on Sunday in a seven-day war.
She outgrows herself, goes too far, but retains
control, sounding her ghostly horn,
making a fool of me as I come so close to forgetting
everything I lost that Sunday in a seven-day war.
Woke up with frosted lips, gauging
how to outrun the horizon ahead of me.
Dying to the world didn’t settle the score.
The other days faded away feverishly. I was stranded.
I stranded myself on Sunday in a seven-day war.
There was morning and evening. I reached out
my wrists for the ropes to be torn, stitches undone.
Skin captivates and is captured. But mine was freed,
fatefully released on Sunday in that seven-day war.
Walls fall down and are rebuilt. Violence sings a ballad,
but silence is the zenith. I wish I could be her,
in the aftermath, in the beginning, the sole
mediator on Sunday in a seven-day war.
She outgrows herself, goes too far, but retains
control, sounding her ghostly horn,
making a fool of me as I come so close to forgetting
everything I lost that Sunday in a seven-day war.
Natasha Bredle is an emerging writer based in Cincinnati. Her work has been featured in publications such as Words and Whispers, The Lumiere Review, and The Madrigal. She has received accolades from the Bennington College Young Writers Awards, as well the Adroit Prizes. In addition to poetry and short fiction, she has a passion for longer works and is currently drafting a young adult novel.