Explore Your Soul
don’t thank me
i might’ve stepped on you
had you strayed
don’t try to change me
i’ll take from you
if your lie is true
and when i’m done
your lungs will empty
and your heart will pound
you’ll call for me
but i won’t be found
by Daphne Shadows
i didn’t run dry
you bled me out
like a carcass
left me propped up
no toe tag to speak of
lights on
‘open for business’ sign lit up
and lying
it’s empty
bound and covered
scrawled with lovely
bold lettering
embossed even
pages numbered
it’s empty
Daphne Shadows
i muddled through the black waters, pants sticking to my legs and trying to drag me deeper, deeper into the depths of what i couldn’t see.
true north shone brightly in front of me, coaxing me farther into the shallow night.
their lights nicked me here and there. i dove behind patches of nature i couldn’t name, my breath drowning out the pounding of my heart as i tried to quiet myself into the stillness of the amazon.
they’d invited me here
given me stories of love
but that’s all they were. stories to cover their chains. chains and blood and misery. i sliced through them with paper cuts and tears, fleeing into the middle of what they would not see.
choices, choices.
they’d made theirs.
it moved, the sky, and i realized i was going the wrong way.
or perhaps. true north never was very true.
could they lie so perfectly?
i drove a stake into my heart to hush it. not now. i needed to think. needed to breathe.
their voices came closer, closer, words almost but not.
would they stop at the gate? the gate, the gate they’d paraded in front of us all, mocking our chained gait, waving their red flags to hide the truth. behind crowds and chants, mindless distraction and chemistry.
we didn’t listen.
we chose too.
at the gate now, their rattling grating on my nerves. so close their words made sense, scraping down my spine and making my teeth ache.
i would not go back. inside me, they spoke, we will not go back.
i nodded in agreement, branches scratching my face and arms.
moving in nanoseconds and held breaths, i peeked around the black bark of the tree. everything painted black in the absence of the moon, they appeared as foreign things, standing with too long limbs, too large heads, rounder than seemed right.
at the gate.
they moved like they had no joints, too limber, too broken. eyes shining like an animal’s as the lights they carried caught them in the face. hissing and guttural anger issued through the clearing.
backs to me now.
they left.
left me to my choice.
i sighed into the tree at my back, tension rolling off my skin like springs falling out, leaving me lifeless and warm.
but there was no escaping what lived inside me now.
And I sit there on the floor
Legs not crossed like a lady
But crossed like I’m four again
Sitting at school on the carpet
Waiting for the teacher to explain.
Okay, I’m ready.
For you to let down your wisdom
Breathe the secret into my ear
Pull back the curtain
Ignite the barren emptiness
Of not knowing
Only
I sit there, on the floor
Waiting
Rubbernecking like nobody’s business
Wholeheartedly believing
Now I’ll understand
Now it’ll all make sense
I’ll get it
Understand
I’ll know what this life is all about
What I’ve been missing
I’ve lived into my how-to manual
People will come rushing through the terminals
Hard earned years of enlightenment
They’ll bustle in their hurried fever
Of needing to get on with their lives
Because they have so much to live
What, with all that understanding
Due to age…
Only
I sit there, on the floor
Realizing the room is empty
It’s a stage with polished floors
And vaulted ceilings
Rows and rows of chairs
The nice cushy ones you might’ve fought your grandpa for
When you were four years old
I look around and see
The lights are off
I’m the only one on the stage
The crowd is empty
Those nice soft seats, void of any life
Any know-how to impart
That’s the first lesson I really learned
About everyone else,
Outside of my skin.
It didn’t knock off any innocence
I wasn’t shiny or brand new by then
That got rubbed off before I could speak
But I’d kept some silly hope that when you said
“When you’re older you’ll understand”
…that you spoke the truth.
You did not.
The truth is
No one knows.
I found this out, sitting cross-legged
Like a child
Vibrating with enthusiasm
And excitement
Ready to warm my hands
At the fire of everyone’s experience
With the heat of age
That’d crept into my body
That everyone told me, made me
Better, somehow
Like numbers of lived life
Ups your worth in some cosmic game
And so you earn more lives
And redeemable information to trade
For a bunch of useless tasks, you performed…because….
Still sitting on an empty floor
Holding a ticket that leads nowhere.
By Daphne Shadows
Photo is property of Daphne Shadows
The dark is danger
But the bright lights lie to us
And down we all fall
by Daphne Shadows
