THE CURSED CAROUSEL
Some curses don't end just because you break them. Some only end when you refuse to continue them. tw: blood, death, violence
Once a year beneath the starving moon
the old fair woke from sleep
with sugared air and lanterns pale
and shadows on the street.
There Mara walked where music sighed
through tents of faded red
and found a carousel of wood
where painted horses fled.
Their lacquered eyes were still and bright
their teeth were carved and white
but one black horse with crimson reins
had watched her through the night.
She reached to climb upon its back
its mouth split wide with spite
the wooden horse bent down its head
and gave her hand a bite.
A painful wound, a little blood
dark drops upon the floor
yet fire crawled beneath her skin
and burned into her core.
The ticket man, so old and thin
looked on without surprise
with rain upon his rotting coat
and secrets in his eyes.
“You should not touch him, we was wait for you”
He whispered through the gloom.
“it did not bite you, dear,” he said
“he recognized your doom.”
“Go home. Do not wash the wound
when music calls your name
whatever voice you hear tonight
do not reply the same.”
The carousel stopped all at once
the tune died in the air
each horse had turned its painted head
and fixed her with its stare.
And from the black horse’s wooden mouth
beneath its varnished grin
there hung a little drop of blood
and a little piece of skin.
She fled the fair, she locked her door
she prayed the wound would close
but blackness bloomed across her hand
like winter on a rose.
No doctor saw, no nurse believed
no human eye could see
the rot that lived upon her skin
the curse that would not flee.
Her hair fell out in silent clumps
her teeth began to fall
her mirror showed a old women
who once had been so young.
Her work was gone, her friends were gone
her days grew cold and gray
and every night the music came
from somewhere far away.
A children’s song, so soft, so old
crept underneath her door
a lullaby her mother sang
in childhood years before.
One year had passed. The fair returned.
the field again grew bright.
And Mara, bent and pale with pain
went limping through the night.
Two fingers lost, her youth consumed
her skin like paper thin
she stood before the ticket man
and showed the death within.
He smiled and said:
“Good evening, lady, you look alive and well.”
“What curse is this?” cried Mara then.
“What spell has marked my breath?”
He leaned and hissed
“The curse of life, of age, decay, and death.”
The carousel began to turn
the music scraped and cried
the black horse stood without a sway
its jaw held open wide.
Then Mara saw the painted herd
for what it was beneath
one horse had fingernails for hooves
one smiled with human teeth.
Behind her came a wooden crack.
The black horse left its ring.
It breathed upon her hollow cheek
And then began to sing.
Not from the pipes, not from the lights
not from the fairground’s dome
it sang with Mara’s Mothers voice:
“Mara, Mara, come home.”
The old man trembled.
“Do not speak.
Do not answer its call.
For if it hears your living soul
the night will take it all.”
Then Mara smelled the sugared rot
that clung around his name
and in his eyes she saw at last
the root of all his shame.
“You too were bitten once,” she said.
The old man turned away.
“You answered it.”
“I feared the grave, I begged the night to stay.”
“And so you steal from other lives
the years you could not keep?”
Her voice rose sharp above the fair
too fierce, too hurt, too deep.
The music stopped. The lamps went out.
The fair became a tomb.
The black horse whispered, “Mara, dear”
From somewhere in the gloom.
“I do not speak to you,” she said
though death was in her chest.
Then turned toward the trembling man
who feared eternal rest.
She sang the song her mother sang
the lullaby of light.
Then pressed her wound against his skin
and gave him back the bite.
He screamed beneath her cursed touch
his skin began to fade
the stolen years inside his bones
were dragged into the shade.
“No, no!” he cried. “I still have time!”
His voice cracked like a stone.
Mara held him close and said
“Then give me back my own.”
The carousel spun backward then
the horses shrieked and reared.
The fairground split with shattered bulbs
and every shadow sneered.
His fingers fused, his spine bent back.
His mouth filled up with brass.
His coat became a painted hide.
His eyes like yellow glass.
Beside the black horse, gray and old
a new horse took his place.
With rotting teeth and human eyes
and terror on its face.
The carousel fell still once more.
The dawn began to bleed.
And Mara felt warm blood return
where once had lived the parasite.
Her fingers did not come again.
Her youth was not restored.
The year he stole remained a wound
no mercy could afford.
But still her heart beat in her chest.
Still breath moved through her frame.
The song returned, her mother’s song
a lullaby once dear
meant once to guard her childhood dreams
and keep her safe from fear.
The old man used her grief and dread
the sorrow she had known
to steal the time she had to live
and keep it as his own.
amazing, the curse repelled, the meter held
Omggggg this was SO good. Obsessed. 🥀🫀