woah, had to google the title, what’s midazolam lol

I like the sort of gradient from I to V, like it sort of skews towards flashbacks, memories and introspection, if I’m reading it as intended…or is it much more literal than metaphorical? brilliant anw

midazolam is 2’-halogenated benzepheshjodlpzxop I can’t remember the rest of it. Causes drug-induced amnesia basically. Another drug was listed but it’s used in date-rape sometimes… and that would shade this even more darkly.

I wrote II and I separately, but then it all came together. It reads as a skewed fairytale of sorts, and like those it does mean something even if I was consciously more on piecing a narrative together.

What’d you read off it?

it seems sort of like a druggie’s dream: like I and II are obviously laden with fantastical elements, III and IV have a sort of introspection, a sense of observation akin to slowly waking up, while V seems detached altogether – "Much later – " seems to be narrated by a third party, while the context seems to show that the persona of the poem speaks this: a sort of detachment from reality? A heightened sense of self-consciousness? hmm..

Truth be told I only just realised how whacked my timelines are running. Even disregarding how chemistry can’t have existed then there’s no way in hell knights would exist in the same time period as Japan as a country with a country flag and all (unless… but yeah crossing quite deeply into fantasy as you said)

annnnnnd naw, sorry not quite. Though I can see where you’ll get it from. When writing what was foremost for me was more on gender issues, conformity and society (organized religion if you squint) and free will.

Also this is most definitely a single persona, no other POVs.

I see.

I can see the gender issues in I and II, but it sort of fades by III? Conformity, definitely, free will, as a contrast to conformity, perhaps.

Japan’s flag was adopted around 1866, so I guess it’d be a bit out of the timeline, but creative license and whatnot. Besides, it was never explicitly mentioned that the country in question IS Japan, I guess.

Yeah it’s not obvious with bits cut out to fit the character limit. I intended it to read as the knights drugging her. Male privilege and such.

Was trying to bend it to fit the prompts, but yeah true.

It was a great poem nonetheless