Breathless

[Universalchild]

It isn't a cult, but it is a ceremony. It is an ancient buddhist ritual which is meant to purge a demon from a person (in this case, a teenage girl) - by dunking them in water. A lot of rituals involve dunking so really it could apply to any of them. In this situation, and it is based on a true story, she simply drowned because they were over-zealous and held her under for too long.

If you're talking about the case in Japan where a teenage girl was "exorcised" by her father and a monk, it was a cult -- the Nakayama Shingo Shusho, a "Buddhist" offshoot that is rejected by other Buddhists. Buddhism doesn't recognise demons as it has no place for good or evil. There are purification ceremonies involving water, but they are certainly not exorcisms.

That doesn't mean, of course, that the poem itself is wrong. I feel it would be much stronger without Western religious words such as "devil" though. Also, there are cliches such as "unleash the beast" (which is not made less cliche by using inverted commas) that could be removed. The first two stanzas are quite strong as they are "showing" -- when you move to "telling" the poem becomes less interesting to me.

I don't remember it being Japan, but I don't really recall the country at all so it could be, but it was definitely a monk drowning a girl, so it is probably that story. However, when I read up about it, from various sources, none of them mentioned the cult - I assumed it wasn't really a buddhist practice, but a cultural practice being used by local buddhists. Buuut, mind you, it was just news articles, and they are often pretty vague around that sort of thing. In that case, it is a cult.

I'll think over what you've said for the edit.

these last moments diluted,
forever flow.

if you remove any lines like the ones above you'll tighten the poem up
allow to use it's own lungs as it were. often these sort of lines restrict a good poem.
the edit is a big improvement, now you need to trim away ate the bindings.

I'll think on what you've suggested, thanks!