The Pen and The Wind

“Close your eyes and envision the location, the one you were telling me about.”

I sat back and tried to focus, constructing in my mind architecture both familiar and strange at the same time. It was difficult, but soon a mysterious house stood in my mind’s eye. “I’ve got it, I think.”

“Good,” The therapist said in a soothing voice, “Now take me down the hallway, the one you were telling me about in your dream.

In my head, I struggled to retrace the steps down the impossibly long hallway, past the open rooms containing secrets and emotions stored away from over the years.

She must have been able to see the strained expression knitting in my brow, because out of nowhere she said, “You’re doing great. Just keep going, take me down to the door. The one you mentioned before. After wandering down the dark hallway, I came to it. It was a very plain looking door, and unlike every other room in that strange house it was closed. Just looking at that door terrified me, I could feel that what was behind it was horrible, terrible, and dangerous.

I began to tense up, and felt myself quake. She reassured me, “It’s ok, you’re safe, and you’re ok. I want you to try and open the door. Open it up and tell me what is behind it.”

I reached out, the arm in my mind’s eye trembling despite not being corporeal. I fumbled with the knob, and the door slowly opened. The interior was completely black, yet I could make our the image of a silhouette standing in there, one of something… inhuman. Before I had chance to describe what I was seeing, there was a surge. A tide of black flame exploded out from that door and engulfed me. I felt myself filled completely with emotion, rage, hatred, sorrow, despair, every dark emotion possible boiled in me. A scream erupted from me, a scream that carried that sudden onslaught of darkness, one that turned increasingly more and more inhuman, my body rising with the pitch, until I collapsed from exhaustion.

I sat there for a moment, catching my breath. I looked over to her, she wasn’t worried in the least. She simply said, “It looks like you were holding a lot in there. How do feel now.”

“… Better. Like a lot of weight is gone.”

She smiled. “I think we’ve made a good bit of progress here.” 

Lay down and sleep, weary shadow, 
Through restless eyes, wake to the night,
Chance that dawn has your dreams,
And burn up with the desire to fight.

Lay ye down oh wounded wisp,
Used your last flicker on homuncli,
You gasp out for sustenance,
And the in flammable vacuum is but nigh.  

Come and rest fragile silhouette,
With transgressions of the light warping your form,
You mimic and dance the dance of humans,
All the while dreaming of the norm.  

Rest as your sad nocturne plays, 
Lullaby for the torn shadows that dance all around,
Forever caught in an endless, taunting dream,
To live as one of them, unbound 

All I want in life is love,
But I fear I have been tainted too much,
And may never find it,
For who can love the corrupt?

Stained by shadows, the sight of me hurts the eyes,
Where one might give off pheromones, I five an aura,
One permeated with morbidity from all that I have seen,
And the people, of course, run,
But can I blame them?
For I am too corrupt.

Mind warped and caved in upon itself,
Razed by shadows, and attempting to rebuild itself,
But the soil is salted with lust and perversion,
The field of my goals and dreams yields nothing,
Far too corrupt to sustain any life. 

I am tainted, I am corrupt, 
Closer to coal than diamond, 
Do I have any hope of attaining what I seek?
When I see myself for the broken being I am,
Can I expect anyone else to see me as any more? 
  

I’ve no idea what to do anymore,
With broken bones scattered on the floor,
Solid states dripping away,
Color faded and grey.

 Human shape becomes impossible to tell,
Slipping into that shadowy Hell,
Decaying into a bestial form,
Unthrillingly and unwillingly defying the norm. 

Silent as a pool of hollow cries,
Dark and deep as a dead man’s eyes,
Black fires burn of shattered hope,
I’ve given enough fuel to burn the Archon’s rope.

Slip into shadow with no physical state,
Freeing oneself from a world of hate,
Keeping oneself solid is such a chore,
When humankind keeps pushing you into nevermore. 

When clouds are stained by luminous ink,
And deprived of gales I cannot think,
You may then find me soon dead,
For on shadows and storms do I tread.

When light begins to fade away,
The deranged and depraved come out to play,
But dragons too Live in the night,
Their power been shunned by light.

And gales that slice through air,
Carry ancient knowledge here and there,
While pebbles, rocks, and earthen clods,
Are cast down for wind to trod.

And that where gale and shadow meet,
Cause lightning to crack at our feet,
But these furious bolts that make us run,
Are deranged dragons having a bit of fun.

Upon shadows and storms I do tread,
I do not live with souls so dead,
But those who are living art,
And carry shadow and bolt in their heart.

I command you damned Darkness, 
That which I’ve cut from my life, 
Release my friend from your clutches,
Stop giving her all your strife.

Unchain her from your shadowy keepers, 
Who manipulate her personality.
They warp her thoughts and hold the reins, 
On someone who deserves to be free. 

Free her from your damned whispers,
The silent ones at the back of the mind,
If you bring any harm upon her,
No quarter you shall find.  

You’ve no reason, nor any right, 
To keep imprisoned such a paragon. 
She’s meant for so much greater things, 
Not to be your tainted pawn.

Release her damned Darkness,
Let her go on her own path.
For she means so much to so many,
You don’t want our collective wrath.  

Sit and sigh with a somber rake, 

While only in the company of trees, 

Ceaselessly strumming on a stringless guitar, 

With only silent whispers coming to me.                                                                                                                                                                                 

Sunlight shines from a shimmering sky,

That would rather have me in the dark, 

And I take an exhausted insomniac’s nap, 

Setting my dreams on a sinking Ark.                                                                                                                                                                              

And after years of sighing in those shadows, 

I am not now, nor I ever was,

A whole human, or even a Phantom, 

I’m something more of a lost cause.                                                                                                                                                                                

And like a unwanted Excalibur, 

I sit sheathed in a stone gathering dust,

And these solitary shadows seep into my sheath,

Infect my mind and make me rust.                                                                                                                                                                                 

And every now and then I’ll lift my eyes,

To the sky and to the trees, 

And think of harming myself in an awful way, 

Shrug and sigh, and it soon pases from me.                                                                                                                                                                  

I’m simply a childhood toy, 

Handled for a bit, and soon discarded, 

And I’ll gather dust among the trees, 

With nothing left, and so unguarded. 

“You’ve never seen anything like it, never in your life.”

” I heard that she makes the heavens open up and raze entire cities to the ground.”

“No, it’s nothing like that.  She has this knight, her general, who is a demon bound to her control, he’s the source of all that power.”

“You fool, how could one knight, demon or not, level Myocra in one day?”

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