On my lonely venture, my love, I saw many things
From the shallow water to the monstrous fire I have walked
And I have ran too, and hid
My love, on my lonely walk I have been taken, abused, feasted upon, stared at, sang to. I have been praised,
And I have been feared too, and hunted
Many a life has twinkled by my presence and on, into on, there and back, around and under.
Bodies and Souls…
Lights and Fires…
and where are you?
Safe, in some warm place, with curtains and a bed. A tame fire opposite your sleepy mind, fed and clothed and perhaps patient for my arrival.
and where am I?
In some cold alley, my face stiffed with black smoke ash, my hair uneven and messy, my fingers burned and my clothes dashed with cuts from thorns. My nose bloody, my eye purple bruised, looking up to a frozen-twilight sky, sick, tired, unsure and lost.
Diminish and Replenish…
Effervesce and Fix…
Many a time, I would hold myself for the little warmth. I named that temporary warmth, I named it after you, and I kept you with me, and every time I got cold I squeezed myself to feel you. Guilty I felt, for bringing a part of you with me here, but then I remembered that I’m worlds away, and you are safe and I am not.
My love, do you cry at my absence? Do you reach your arm over your high castle walls, watching the roads in hopes to see me one fine morning?
Screaming – I’m screaming. “I am not afraid of you!” Scream I. In screaming, I scream “I am not afraid of you!” But, my love, I am afraid. I am terrified. Shaking, actually, breathing fear. I don’t know these roads! I have no friends here? I am here, in front of the face of horror, and its coal eyes do not blink as they follow me. It’s skinny jaw chomps noisily and I can’t see past it? I cannot run back, not again, run farther from you, run away, run ran run, running.
My love, do you miss me? Are you empty? Or complete? Has time crushed you back together? Were you ever not? My soul reverberates! What is this torment? Questioning questions never before questioned in a barren city overrun with bad-intentioned entities?
Oh, my love. In this dusky darkness may I confess something? You cannot hear me. May I confess something to the monsters around the corner, the spiders circling me, the lanky shadows looking down on me? My love, I found you. I found your castle, at the end of some forest, at the departure of some path, I found your castle. And there I stood, small to the colossal gate, weeping on its cold bars. But you – you who are, who can be, who is – terrify me. You terrify me more than those things that chase me, those things that catch me, those things that drag me from my bed. And though desperate for warmth and stability I ran fast away, blinded by wind until I was in lost again.
And I am looking for you again, because I have lost my way again, and nothing is familiar in this ever-changing vortex of a maze. And time…
I just need to stumble into your arms
Let the weight of everything I have done and faced, crash.
My last steps of this terrifying journey must terminate with you,
or it will never end