Daily Thirty, #00014

Silence in the forest of my mind. Life on a held breath.

Silence of sleep, deep deep slumber. Exhaustion. Sickness.

A touch of death.

Silence of wearied weeping, wearied wishes.

Old dreams in dementia.

Memories of futures that never came to pass. True and false at the same time.

Spells cast so long ago, lost their way.

Stories tangled in thrice upon a times,

Pages missing across chapters,

Hands in suspended animation, uncertain, forgetful,

Ink drying on enchanted paper burning, burning, burning

Only ash remains, smudged into new stories

Something, something, somehow, another seed

Another beginning

How, how is it impossible?

Why not? Why never?

Tell me about the way back into the forest,

The one where the trees whisper secrets,

The one where the mad crone queen reigns eternal.

I am the mad queen.

I am whose heart is a quest.

Tell me about that faraway thing called love.

All grownup and no longer what I thought it was.

All wornout and ugly and scarred.

All anything but itself.

I am looking for my home in the forest.

The one that runs on bird feet.

I am looking for just one of the thousands of doors to get back in.

Once I crossed an ocean and thought I could return.

I crossed another, looking for clues.

All I found were stale poetry, all power leeched by neglect.

Everything feels distant.

Everything feels like a waste of time.

Everything feels like nothing matters anymore.

I hear a song.

It feels like something I knew long ago.

So faint.

The world rushes in, drowns it all.

I taste a fruit.

It feels like a promise made long ago.

The world rushes in, and I am hungry again.

I form words with my hands and my mouth and every one is empty.

Blank pages shift, from dead ends to portals to dead ends.

I need a door.

I need a way through.

I need a key.

I need a magic word.

I want to escape.

I want to go away.

I want to be what I am.

I want love.

I want life.