A Reverie of Euphoria Tinged with Gold
This prose poem is about making something more beautiful than it actually is.
Draft 3 – A Reverie of Euphoria Tinged with Gold
You must understand, right?
I thought my soul was in a transient space, floating through a reverie of euphoria tinged with gold, and it had an aroma akin to vanilla cashmere. No one could ever take my reverie away from me, because I thought it was what I had been waiting for my entire life. How disappointed my God must have been with me, for me to want to lose myself in something so temporal, and so ambiguous. Too soon. “I can’t believe this is my life right now,” I had told them. It was nothing less than anything I had ever wanted to feel, and this reverie in the form of another’s soul opened up my mind to a place my senses yearned to find, seemingly without me even knowing until it happened. Interesting—how quickly it did not remain the same, nor did I get the chance to fully appreciate that golden experience. Each word vanished from my breath as a sort of reckless prayer. I started to shake, disoriented, and everything around me began to fade away. The only colour I could feel cascading through the air was a mixture of grey that danced across my vision like specks in the night. My throat burns from the screams that have escaped my lips. At that moment, it was just.. loss. Emptiness. Abandonment. Loss is the only sensation, the only emotion I could comprehend when my reverie transpired. That goddamn façade revealed itself like a hidden promise, a broken promise that took no shame in shattering any semblance of hope that once crashed inside of my core, like a thoughtless tsunami pounding the innocent shore of a far-off land. With every single sob that wrecked my sensitive frame, a winter breeze blustered through my hair. My heart had been hammering and fluttering and stopping in my chest as if it might shock my system into mind-bending paralysis at any given moment. No longer was my soul floating; God taught me a lesson then and there. I came down to Earth. I was a girl too weak, and too naïve, to see the fire and hot embers burning brighter than any sort of red pennon. Instead of being strong and holding fast to my conviction—and prior sense of rationality—I let my soul float to a place she could not escape from. She let herself be vulnerable. She let her soul open for the very first unforgettable storm whose voice mirrored the sound of bitter indifference, and it slashed through her and caused her to bleed out. The iron fluid burning as it passed through my veins. Now I know. Now I know that even a euphoria tinged with gold will leave a bitter taste in your mouth, suffocating you and strangling your lungs the moment it has the chance.
—Sometimes, you see what you want to see. Not what actually exists.
You see meaning. And there is none.
Now you understand.
—Prose poem by Samantha Fuchsgruber
Date // 23. December 2022
@LockheartArdenPublishing