Winter is Not Far

In the darkened forest of
Those below and those above,
Followed I am through the dead and rustling leaves.
Summer sun or autumn light?
All but forgotten where I might
Have awoken in the midst of those lost trees.
My only clue is the warm
Of the breeze that around me swarms.
Here something whispers: “Winter is not far.”.
There’s a break in the canopy
That offers no new sight to see,
Only the grey that stretches on and on and on.
My steps carry me no farther
The wind carries words from afar, her
Messages are seldom those of comfort, much less of wisdom.
Raindrops and a cold now herald
The days end; my easy path turned feral.
Just how cold and wet remains for me to be seen.
No shelter, no end, no rest,
I wander on, and do my best,
To stay on a straight path, and not become more lost.
With daylight now expired
I sit, my eyes so tired,
And hope when I awaken that the world will be a different place.
I awake without opening my eyes
I’ll not do so voluntarily, something else must pry,
For the rustling of leaves tells me something I ought not to hear.
Standing up and pushing on,
I tread paths where nothing belongs,
And an echo of a whisper repeats: “Winter is not far.”

By Herself

She is awoken by voices,
She is alone.
In a strange place
She calls home.
Echoing off the walls,
In the midst of silence found,
They who have no name,
Each of their words resound.
She hates the silence,
It’s when they are so loud.
Whatever noise she can make
To ward off absent sound.
There is a voice she fears above most,
The one who, from the silence, boasts.
She hates his persistence.
She is insistent that he leave.
She fails and fails and fails again.
Any other voice from the din!
The many shout at her,
She does not give in.
But the one quietly calls,
From behind a door that’s cracked open
When the others leave.
He calls to her, her fears.
Things forgotten from across the years,
And then she remembers why
They were pushed aside.
Then in her heart
She deeply wishes the voices to depart.
And she hears
So softly in her ear,
Him whisper:
“You will believe us absent, asleep,
You will rejoice in your soul deep.
You will forget what I tell you now
And you will remember each time we return our sound
You, in your fear, may not belong,
And we will never truly be gone.”

She closed her eyes,
And awoke alone; or so she was told.
She rose to the window,
And thought the sun too bright to be this cold.

Long Before You Grow to Hate

Her footsteps: a cascade of echos,
Down the halls, unearthly bellows.
Others flee in terror from an unknown fear.
One waits for her motives to be quite clear.
From under the door light betrays,
Where she stops to softly say,
“Come out to play my little one,
The day is over but the night is young.
Think not on the coming days,
Where I’ve to show you where your mind strays.”
She tries the lock, but I’ve planned it
To keep safe from such bandits.
She tries and tries and tries and tries again.
Lights return to normal it seems,
She leaves to find another it seems,
All too late I find I’ve made a grave mistake.
For as I planned and locked my door tightly,
There was a crack open just so slightly,
There to permit a small draft of cold air to enter my room.
As she had so many times before,
Ridden a cold draft beneath my bedroom door,
I swore to myself next time I’d not make the same mistake.
A cruel, cold laughter filled the air
And I, just sat frozen there as each other time she’d come and sing herself softly into my thoughts.
My ego death is nigh and I,
Feel my mind slipping by,
She takes hold of and steps into my mind one final time.
Her footsteps do not seem so painful
As my memory would have been able to remind me so and instill in me this fear.
She walks about and then sits down
She takes for herself a crown,
A crown that once belonged to me and says: “You’ll see, the night will pass and suns will rise
I may become something you dispise,
But long before you grow to hate
You’ll close your eyes and accept your fate.”

Fades Like the Rest

The wandering of soul
When found in want of a home.
Who knows what this one did
To find the face so dimly hid.
Out of the shadows we soon won’t see,
Where the soul has ought to be.
And one more passing by a moment
What was here, the soul has shown it.
Its actions louder than words could express,
It falls into darkness, and fades like the rest.