Kaleigh Jae Poet Free verse

III The Truth of the Brides

I saw then what the village had always known
but never named aloud.
The brides were never lost.
They were offered.
One bride each generation
to keep the shoreline from swallowing everything whole—
a bargain older than the chapel,
older than the bells,
older even than the names carved into the cabblestones.
A sacrifice dressed as marriage.
- - - -
My husband found me at dawn
standing knee-deep in the water,
veil tangled with algae,
listening.
There were tears in his eyes.
Not for me.
For all the women before me
he had watched disappear beneath the surface
without ever daring to call it what it was.
“You have to understand,” he whispered.
 “If we stop—”
The earth groaned beneath us.
Somewhere in the village,
a house collapsed into the lake.
Water rushed forward, greedy and certain.
And beneath the surface,
the singing grew louder.
I looked at him then.
At the chapel half-submerged in the distance.
At the drowned bell tower
jutting from the water
like the spine of a corpse.
Then I looked down
at the women beneath the lake.
Their hollow eyes met mine.
Waiting.
Not for salvation.
For recognition.
For understanding.
Something ancient stirred below them,
vast enough to swallow grief whole.
And suddenly I understood
what none of the villagers ever had:
hunger only grows when it is fed.

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