Shadowland

I am fearful in this place.  I’m examining why.  The house is large, looming, open and in the woods.  I search the skies and love the massive stars, but these evenings there are looming staircases and dark sounds of howling. I am seeing flashes of arms snatching me back; this fear, where am I traveling?

Only here do I journey it, but I don’t want to. I don’t feel safe.  I feel vulnerable in this forest. I ponder the attachments. I am back in cabins, drawn to the dense fir trees, but the energy here doesn’t sit well. So I sleep, hibernate, needing the city like gravity.  

This house whispers and talks, or maybe it’s just the wind.  Tonight the gossip of snow has the birds sleeping, leaving air valleys for the wild dogs to channel ancients.  The language echoes in the silence, and I am pulling slowly back to thirty four years ago.  

Sometimes, I think I came here through a dark cavern; a place that was so haunting, this human life would be but a chore.  There are shadows that follow.  They carry unknown memories with black eyes, begging to be unwrapped.  My hands are limp.  I can’t move them, and I stare back, wishing. 

I’m going to go there soon, to that place where the secrets live.  Shadowland, that’s what we call it; where hallways fade from the knee up and dark rooms hold memories that little girls can’t bear to tell.