The Journey Continues
[As you wander, you find yourself becoming more and more vulnerable to the obstacles that decorate this new terrain. Every exhale condenses into fog, and you find your vision obscured by your own carelessness.]
[You hear the murmuring.]
[“Have to rest tonight / Breathe air in to fuel my heart / Take it all in stride / But there’s no way to hide from life”]
[“The winter’s only just begun”]
“Snowflakes”
My heart feels so vacant
My spirit has left me to wander the world
Whirlwinds whip around me
They clutch my neck tightly and wring out my words
The vowels escape my maw and they fade till they’re dissonant
Contorting to figures resembling consonants
Now I have no inkling of this storm’s beginning
Might as well be frozen on the slopes of time
Snowflakes, the snowflakes display a dark dance
A maze of icicles that melts with a glance
But then forms a fortress of malicious blades
Oh, perhaps my hope will be
Snowflakes, the snowflakes, malevolent maze
That twists up my soul and squeezes till it breaks
Melancholy fractals sweep me through a trance
Oh, perhaps my hope will be
Shattered like the ice of my mind
My lungs are now frigid
My warmth is retreating and morphing to cold
Enraged blizzard blowing
Replacing my thoughts with the murmurs of old
The glistening crystals protrude from the broken ground
Contemplate existence but answers are never found
Imprisoned in arctic, the rain gives a little lick
Then hardens its tears into bullets of pain
Snowflakes, the snowflakes are waltzing away
Carving out the trails that will lead me astray
Obscuring my eyes and then gouging them out
Oh, perhaps my hope will be
Snowflakes, the snowflakes, can’t hear the shrill shouts
They’re buckled within and don’t wish to get out
The hailstorm playing on repeat every day
Oh, perhaps my hope will be
Impaled like the flesh of my heart
Benevolent flames were a blanket of safety
And the planet surrounding was pulsing with heat
A gallant inferno thudding to the beat
Full of warmth of the warmth of the warmth all the warmth
Need the warmth need the warmth
You knocked on the door and you disrupted harmony
Claiming to be lonely and in need of company
Then a tempest snuffed out the warm blazes that loved me
It was gone
quickly gone
quickly gone
always gone
now it’s gone
now it’s gone
Snowflakes, the snowflakes are waltzing away
Carving out the trails that will lead me astray
Blurring my eyes and then gouging them out
Oh, perhaps my hope will be
Snowflakes, the snowflakes, can’t hear the shrill shouts
They’re buckled within and don’t wish to get out
This hailstorm playing on repeat every day
Oh, perhaps my hope will be
Snowflakes, the snowflakes display a dark dance
A maze of icicles that melts with a glance
But then forms a fortress of malicious blades
Oh, perhaps my hope will be
Snowflakes, the snowflakes, malevolent maze
That twists up my soul and squeezes till it breaks
Melancholy fractals sweep me through a trance
Oh, perhaps my hope will be
Snowflakes, the snowflakes, the agony strikes
Shudders through my body leaching out my life
The expansive glaciers cave in feeble walls
Oh perhaps my hope will be
Snowflakes, more snowflakes, this hell never halts
Annihilation by the tundra’s assault
Thrusting past the limits of fury and strife
Oh perhaps this love will be
Shattered like the ice of my mind
Fragments too difficult to find
The story scattering apart
Impaled like the flesh of my heart
of my heart
of my heart
Now my heart feels so vacant
[Meanwhile, inside…]
“The Mansion”
There’s heaps of snow out on the driveway,
The sidewalk’s slippery with sadness
Front door frozen shut, its wood grain
Patterned by this white disease
Within these insulated walls
In the whirling twists of whimsied halls
Labyrinthine stairways, rooms galore
But a prison on each expansive floor
Exit me, you’ll meet your death,
She may be sweet, I do confess,
But she’s a vagabond in search of more
Relentless hunger, never bothers to rest
Please stay inside, I’ll keep you safe
Heat your skin until it breaks
And cracks apart with a sickening sound
That echoes all around this mansion we made
The world should be explored, you say,
What is there left to do but wait?
The basement beasts will gnash their teeth
Yet they’re all more bark than bite
This planet is a harsh, atonal reality
Chords change with unpredictability
Hypothermia is an inevitable ill,
The wintry winds of jazz therein will force you when you’re still
But it’s not supposed to snow here
It’s not supposed to snow here
It’s not supposed to snow here at all
But it’s not supposed to snow here
It’s not supposed to snow here
It’s not supposed to snow here, but
Exit me, you’ll meet your death,
She may be sweet, I do confess,
But she’s a vagabond in search of more
Relentless hunger, never bothers to rest
Please stay inside, I’ll keep you warm
Inside the comforts of this suffocating home
Don’t leave when there’s a roof right over your head
The mansion keeps you calm, you never are alone
The world should be explored, I think,
Forever waiting, on the brink,
I’m always stuck inside (that’s right!)
Yet I’m yearning to take flight
I crave to prove myself (how naive)
Prove that I am something more (how touching)
Or that I am something else (how lovely)
Or that I’ve opened another door (how deluded, darling, keep it coming)
I crave to prove myself (these walls)
Prove that I am someone more (these halls)
Than the “me” that I have shown (this home)
And I can open every door (and you’ll always be alone)
Exit me, you’ll meet your death, (it’s not the end)
She may be sweet, I do confess, (I know the risks)
But she’s a vagabond in search of more (aren’t we all?)
Relentless hunger, never bothers to rest (continue on this quest)
Please stay inside, I’ll keep you safe (no way)
Heat your skin until it breaks (to stay safe)
And cracks apart with a sickening sound (take a chance now)
That echoes all around this mansion we made (made by mistake)
There’s heaps of snow out on the driveway
But it’s not supposed to snow here
It’s not supposed to snow here
It’s not supposed to snow here at all
But it’s not supposed to snow here
It’s not supposed to snow here
It’s not supposed to snow here, no, not at all
[The door opens with an icy crack. The sidewalk is nonexistent, plastered with packed snow, and the surrounding suburbia begins metamorphosis. The sloping household roofs sharpen to points, and the bricks meld into impenetrable cliffs of stone.]
[The doorknob of the illusory mansion passes through your hand like air]
[There is no way to go but onward]
“Wandering”
Solitary in the mountains,
A breath of fresh air
Fills my lungs, reviving me
Shivering in the sky
Are the northern lights
Tell me, tell me where to go
Missing are my old friends
And new people
Fill the space with feeling
And my enemies
Will be forgiven in time
Once I, once I know where to go
Because there’s a destination
Somewhere where I wander
It’s all about the journey
But I can’t help but to wonder
What will become of everything
Leaf-fall, snowfall
Rainfall, downfall
Summer and spring, and fall
It’s winter in the forest now
Without known destinations
We will always wander
It’s all about the journey
But I can’t help but to wonder
What will become of me, what will become of everything,
What will become of the world
© Ember Laren Szaflarski