The Woods

Prompt for 2025-26 challenges:

Character connections: In poetry or prose, write about a connection - whether positive, negative, or neutral - between two characters or yourself and a character.

I am tormented by slight movements

even silence is hurting me

reality seems to be strobing

or something like it -

I've yet to learn how to explain these moments to others,

even myself.

It's not normal,

This is the worst kind of anticipation

this anticipation isn't just fear of what is to come

it's laced around the edges with knowledge of how it went last time

of how a repeat of last year is most likely inevitable.