I’m Afraid I'll Be Sad Forever, so I Wrote This

by: cathrina jakeman published: 07/02/2026 I want to rot softly away from the car that took me here. Away from the Radiohead playing on the speakers, and my foot on the pedal, and please don't hit the gas. Don’t hit the gas, or we’ll rot under the bridge at 112 and 113, and if we rot under that bridge, we’ll never get to where we are. Where we are is in the soft rot. In the warm embrace of a sycamore tree, where the skin melts off our bones and the roots take us somewhere we’ll be remembered. We’re rotting softly in the cradle of strong arms, where our heart kisses our spine when we look up, up, up. We’re rotting softly away from the blaring lights of the city, where the smog never meets our lungs and the pavement never cracks our ankles. We can choose to rot, decay, between dirty sheets, whispered prayers of productivity, or we can choose to rot softly. But we are still rotting. Let it be in the off hours of the sun, touching the tips of our tongues, in the swamp, where we’ll inevitably end up, sweet and green and glowing.