The prompt list for these (if anyone in this beyond-dead fandom is interested) is on my tumblr, which has the same penname as I do on here. Sue me. I'm a simple soul. Enjoy and whatnot. This is actually a poem I did for a creative writing class in high school. Neat, huh? Boy can I recycle.
June 7th, 2018
The first time is a jolt
Like waking up from a bad dream
In which something terrible has happened.
The cicadas cry mournfully outside our home
Accompanying the sticky heat of early June
And I am sweating inside my blankets as the morning comes.
The walk to school is quiet
Because my best friend senses that something is wrong
And so do I, even though the water in the drains is as soothing as ever.
Even though the sleepy murmur of the cicadas drones on in the background,
Even though school is as boring and our playmates as rambunctious as always,
And even though everything in our village is as peaceful and drowsy as ever,
I still sense something wrong.
The second time is like a shot of Novocain
Stinging and numb all at the same time
And it feels like my head has been stuffed with balls of cotton.
It's not right.
That thought buzzes in my skull and hums in my bones.
And I want the world to stop so I can listen.
This shouldn't be possible.
I can predict things right before they happen
Because they happened before, and now they're happening again.
But nobody else remembers what happened before
And I am forced to watch as everything is propelled towards a bloody tragedy
And I wake up again.
The third time is different, but only by a little
And instead of one terrible thing, another happens
And my friends still die in horrifying ways.
The fourth time is the same as before
Different but similar
And this time my friends are the killers,
Not the victims.
The fifth time is like falling inside a void
Because I am starting to realize
That this isn't a dream.
I try to warn them again
Because maybe I wasn't as urgent as I needed to be last time
But nobody believes what I say
Because prophecies aren't true.
By the sixth time I am tired
Of the constant droning of the cicadas
And I want to see any other month but June.
And I realize
As I linger before the next rewind
That I die in each loop, too
With my belly cut open and a chloroform cloth over my mouth
I realize that Oyashiro-sama is bringing me back to the beginning
So that I can stop my friends from encountering tragedy
And that someone is killing me each time I rewind.
A strong will creates destiny, and destiny forms the future
So that this person with their strong will to see me dead
Is forcing me to relive this bloody June over and over again
And watch each unavoidable tragedy
That my friends enact.
The summer days drag on
Each one blurring together in their sameness
Carried by the hot and humid wind.
It rains on the same days for the same length of time
And the sun comes out precisely on schedule
And I have memorized an entire library's worth of scripts
Scripts of fragments of worlds that work like stories
With every line burned into my memory
By their endless repetition.
I can predict everything that will happen
And I know every facet of the stage
But I am still helpless to stop the actors from rushing to their doom.
By the hundredth rewind, I have grown tired of fighting fate
I still don't know who or what my enemy is
And I am still trapped in this endless month of June.
10.08 PM, USA Central Time