Distant lights form a hologram
Of people’s hearts. Four chambers
To pass through to reach Summer’s
Warmth. Messages sent by telegram.
Will they see it before today becomes yesterday?
Their pain stems from all the things they take.
Words from afar lack weight. For this I pay
With my tears, a most bitter brew to partake.
Still I remain like a lighthouse guiding those lost.
Breathe. You haven’t drowned in the waves tossed.
I’m here kicking pebbles down the road.
Inside I’m screaming for strength I lack
But the words others said resonate. Led
By their kindness I get back on track.
I must face my past to continue through a black
Never-ending night. Janus, my angel and demon,
Holds the key to escape if only I decide to go back.
The first time I ran. Afraid that my life is treason
To the sanctity others cultivate. A beast lost in Eden
Who forsakes himself to defend their paradise gleamin’.
Give into fate. Fear only silences the words that are right.
You’ll never change the things written but you can still write.
To find us both here at the same end.
The ladder’s rungs give way and bend.
Can you even see? Perhaps the wanderlust lingers
Within your eyes like a sickness. Stay and defend;
Orders taken to the heart but in your hands splinters
Fester. Where could we ever find escape? Please, lend
Me a glance of empathy in all this. Coldest of all Winters.
Visibility close to zero. Blasts of cold nip my fingers
Raw and frozen. Chained by icy hearts and integers.
Two friends grasping at a primordial fire
In an attempt to better mankind. To tend
And to witness unless we give into our ire.
UNDERSTAND
When this fateful storm finds its solemn end
We’ll drift away to somewhere we can mend.
A breath of cold extinguishes my feet. The ashes the wind carries meet a silky layer of snow. I stand here between a gentle touch and a bitter gnawing, a borderline. My prideful words harden in my throat; a sign appears asking me where to. I clamp my teeth together as I step into the unknown icy realm.
The forest door of branches and vines wilts away revealing two intertwined trees. I walk around them. How? Is it a passage or something more? I touch the trees but I fall backwards. Stinging sorrow and ever consuming love overflows from them. I kneel down and try again. This time I focus on the emotions to bring the truth to the surface.
Frost cracks from the branches releasing two flurries. These flurries materialize into two elven children holding hands. The hands frostbitten and frozen together. They skip around in joy. Little laughs echo throughout the barren tundra. I look at them like they’re a happy photo beneath a broken frame. My heart aches at the sight creating a deep hole. A chasm, an innumerable amount of time between then and now.
I follow them with Daefyr wading in my shadow. Every step takes me closer into the despair that befell these two. I shiver from the cold but I couldn’t conjure up any fire. I hold myself with my own arms trying to stay warm. Freezing gusts of air and snow slice at me. No matter what I do the cold pierces me. I’m at its mercy.
The farther we go the thicker the snowfall gets. My eyes cannot see more than a few feet in front of me. Suddenly the elves stop dancing. I press my feet into the snow to gain enough traction to stop as well. They turn towards me then point forward and fade away with the wind. I slowly step forward until my toes reach the end of land. A steep cliff lays before me.
I sit down with my legs dangling over. My hands grip the ledge and trace the grooves of stone. Everything feels right except for two small holes. I begin shaking. What happened here? Those children died. But. . .why are they happy? Daefyr rubs his wet, cold nose against my chest. He pushes me into the snow. See the truth, young master.
In the distant a scream scrapes through the shivering cold. A voice more like rusty metal creaking in the wind. I squint to see further but only the scream becomes clearer. A cry for help that time now distorts. The pain is a singularity of emotion that nothing escapes from especially time. Suffering. I reach my hand out.
“How. . .no, why?” suddenly a thin tendril of ice flies pass me. Energy reverberates in the ice until it resonates a deafening tone. I cover my ears and roll away from it. The ice explodes into a cloud of shards.
“Nobody came.”
“No. Nobody did. But that time is gone.”
“I remain.”
“Because you choose to. You can move on now.”
“Only the living have that gift.”
“No. All things exist in cycles. That includes you. You’re lost. You don’t know where to go. Let me guide you.” I reach out my hand. The ghost grabs my hand but the bitterness and pain starts freezing my hand. I grit my teeth. When the ghost notices it tries to let go. I grab tighter.
The smoke spreads around like a thick fog. I watch the light haze over and listen to the trees creak. An ancient energy surges through every rock, tree, blade of grass, and creature in the forest. The branches reach downward opening a path lit by spheres of light. I look down the path and see visages in the smoke. They call and beckon as brambles chase away these wandering visitors.
I close my eyes. One, two, three; the way opens up before me. Take it. Before I even move Daefyr paws at my leg. A warmth overflows my core. Cool flames begin coming out from the back of my limbs. The flames appear on Daefyr as well. My feet tingle with anticipation and adrenaline. I make a quick dash but my speed trips me. I scrape my knees on the thorny brambles. Seeing me fail terribly Daefyr drags me to the base of a tree.
The scent of dew and honey fills my nose. I try to resist to no avail. The intense fragrance lulls me into a trance. I see shades of multiple bright colors join with the smoke. In my addled state I follow the colors. They merge and divide quite randomly. My mind keeps telling me to ignore them yet I can’t resist.
A sense of madness stirs within me. I fear it and still I embrace it too. The colors seep into my saturated heart. Crimson red drips into sky blue. My hands shake between sorrow and rage. Forever hiding the truth of my own weakness. I lean my back against a tree and close my eyes.
“I must stay on my path. That sweet and vibrant existence isn’t mine. I’d be too weak to protect it. Daefyr and I might be forbidden from our home but we can’t take yours, dear elves. Being honest. Our struggles create who we are and to trade them away seems wrong. Or to repress them. I’ll be off now.” I pat my thighs and stand back up.
My footsteps burn away ill brambles freeing the wanderers. the spheres of light rise towards the dew encrusted canopy. But I follow wherever these feet fall. I look around some. The Autumn leaves gingerly float down, wildlife frolics around in a blissful communion with nature, and I care for this Grand Garden.
“Flame – to purify or to erase.”
I reach up into a spruce tree. A conifer branch‘s needles scratch at my hand. I carefully break off the end of a branch. The strong smell it secretes tinges the air. Using a blade of grass I tie the end and place the bundle on a flat rock. I look at the burning Sun then focus on the bundle. Thoughts of warmth and greed pollute my empty mind.
From the immaterial a form emerges. A burning sensation spreads through the individual cells in my arm. I wince from the pain. My cells start feeling as if the moisture starts boiling. I gasp for air. The feeling calms down a little and I begin focusing on the bundle again. The spruce needles move back and forth as if by the wind.
A spark sets the bundle ablaze. The smell of spruce fills the air even heavier now. I clear my throat and begin chanting a few words:
“The way is lost. We pay the cost of nature’s host for a toast. By the very circles and forlorn passages we come bearing the words of men. Must we be lost or can be found? The way remains lost. We ask the ghost of the forest to guide us. Hear us.”
A form materializes from the smoke. It beckons to me like a beautiful woman. My legs move without my consent and the smoke touches my cheek. I loosen my muscles up, the thick air shimmers around me, Daefyr watches from a few yards away, and daylight cascades through the treetops. The spirit dances for a few minutes.
“I hear thee. The lost. Seekers of the West caught between elven sorrow and human wrath. Will you cure the wound or infect it? The blood in you tastes sweet yet sour like berries. To prove yourself as not poison walk through these forlorn passages. Where brambles doth recede for soft feet to tread.” her mystic words choke the air and burn in my chest.
The beautiful tree high above the ground
Stands there majestic. A light sound
Orchestrated by the wind and branches
Sounds like a horn blown from the heavens.
The harbinger of eternity comes to bear witness
A purge of both the innocent and guilty, a catharsis.
Dark seeds fall from the tree. They merge with the living,
Changing them from within, cutting off their connection.
Imprisoned within their bodies they must bear witness too.
Blood and tears flood the streets. The sun refuses to shine
Upon this massacre leaving them in perpetual darkness.
Sacrifices to raise a beast born from our own hearts;
One of the wretched. A serpent, the leviathan,
Reborn from malice. In the starkness
Of goodwill and kindness is where this starts.
The hardest bark and thinnest blade of grass;
Reality and dreams – caught on the shoals
Of a sea where the known and unknown
Wage war. A pendulum swinging back and fro.
Caught in the tides to which we never let go
And we become slaves to. We who own
The world actually own nothing. Fools,
Proving themselves with wealth and brass.
A darkness grows from this discrepancy.
These deeds corrupt the primal forces
Born ages before humanity. Destruction.
Is this a law of motion or simply karma?
The Dragacian people were not ready.
Fanatical beasts pour out at a steady,
Unnerving rate. Again, they were not ready.
Hatred it seeps into our hearts filling it black,
The day comes when the dawn will no longer break,
we forget who we are and who they are. A war begins.
We could walk away. Why don’t we? We could.
The differences between us never justify.
To take is to steal for we weren’t given this earth.
Question what you were told. They lied.
The world allows us to be here.
If we betray the kindness how can we say it’s unfair?
Let’s walk away. The march forward we can’t share.
A shaking fear, a trembling heart; the tides
Grow more fierce and head further inland.
I sit here awaiting it. Sifting grains of sand.
Looking for just another way that life guides.
Forward. An unsure destination
Marked by footsteps now fading. . .
Backward. A race to the beginning
Until the day forward is backward.
Do we walk and lose the path?
Do we walk until the path is lost?
I awake to the echo of clockwork. After rubbing my eyes I look around. Above me hangs a giant clock. It floats in a place where nothing else other than darkness exists. The time reaches midnight.
The darkness splits in half with light. White light like a spear pierces through this lonely chamber. I step toward the divide. An infant’s cry, a solemn gasp, and the ticking of a clock sound as I approach.
“Child, you have returned. The place you are is the first and last place your existence came to be. From the heights of freedom to the depths of sorrow you fell. Here, you can forget for you’ve become faded.” echoes an omnidirectional and gentle voice.
Cracks of light spread until everything clears up. I fall to my knees and gasp at the sight. Charred ground that black vines grow from goes from horizon to horizon. A mob of people with a dark gray eyes walks around aimlessly. I feel a coldness in their gaze.
One woman grabs my arm. Despair, loneliness, and captivity surge from her weak touch. I pull away suddenly. The mob turns toward me. My mind screams to run but, my body freezes in fear. Stupidly I think about the state of the human condition as they overpower me and tear at my flesh with overgrown nails.
“Damaged. . .” I spit out that single word with a little blood, “Anger and hate vents from broken and lost hearts. Are you looking for a new beginning? I know I am.”
They mindlessly attack me. I feel myself sinking beneath the tide of their bodies. All the emotions gnaw at my heels to keep me stuck here. I cry and scream for help while knowing it’s just in vain. Eventually my body grows numb to the pain.
I dig my nails into the charred ground and pull myself through the mob. My arms collapse from exhaustion. The shadows of their tangled bodies swallow me up whole. I try to remember better times before now because I can no longer feel anything. One memory finds its way among these dark times.
A day where my heart aches but my eyes could no longer cry. My best friend, another kid apprentice in a small town known for its superb smiths, argues with military officers about prices. They call him a greedy kid but they are wrong. He works hard trying to get medicine for kids in an orphanage.
He looks at the villagers who turn away from him. And I, his friend, walk away to work on my craft. After a few hours I run to his family home knocking on the door. No one answers. I decide to sit on their stairs until they return. Before I notice the suns begins setting bringing with itself a cold April shower. Cold and shivering I wait.
I open the door around midnight. He sits there on his knees in a pool of tears. The candles cast a shadow over him but I reach out to touch his shoulder. My thoughts race and no words come out. He pushes me away.
“Where did you go! They, no. . .no one believed me. Those kids are dying! And the military offers nothing while expecting cheaper prices for their duty. They called me a petty thief. No one spoke of my innocence as they called me guilty. Look at what silence does!” he raises bandaged hands missing a few fingers.
“I’m sorry but what could us kids change? They could’ve killed you.” I speak without hesitation and bite my tongue after.
“Get out.” he pushes me back.
That day’s mistake still eats away at my conscience. Thoughts like what-ifs gnash and tear. A wound forms from looking back while knowing I can never change the past. It keeps me awake at night. And my senses return with the old heartache.
“I fucked up back then. I know that. Yet from failure I still dare wish to succeed.” I shout with my whole heart.
“To feel pain is the cost to feel anything at all but don’t become obsessed with it. Learn to grow with every step. And with any luck this darkness, a horde of tainted hearts, will never be. Cure the blight.” everything blurs out of focus.
Vasha'Lakar 
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