The Well

“Banned combination of the letters.”

Newly spoken language
asking me to stay
as I pray into the well;
once filled with poison, someone’s tears
and countless strings of leather
touching the tip of the transparent liquid
leaving circles, dripping sound with echo. 

I wasn’t lonely at the deep end
of this silent realm of cloudy water
but as I held the ropes
right at the top, at the start of this downcast 
troubled journey, I was alone,
with my divinations on the thought
or the characters envisioned through the pages
of the forbidden type of code.  

Banned combination of the letters 
forming words, spoken quietly in here,
so the ropes don’t swirl and twist, become alive;
shadowed projection prompt memory of serpents
on the ground hissing curses on the soul.

It frightened me and I let go,
splashing like a rock, into the liquid of the well,
I tried to fight but I let go,
Slowly sinking like a quill thrown 
down the Soviet apartment block.

I was sinking and the ropes,
though still shaking like enormous worms,
seemed redeeming and refreshing,
looking like angles covered by the light above. 

It was too late by then,
no strength was left within the arms,
eyes closed and ready for departure
but the air in the lungs became eternal.

At the bottom many souls,
some stayed, loving safeguard of the walls
and others left, digging deeper, 
changing the degree, and making out alive.