06. end of stream: connection #

The woods crept across the cool sky in heavy, arcing paths. Each branch was shunned by the clouds above, commanded to round its way back into the canopies of other trees. The deep greens and purples, alongside the pale greens and slate blues of the foliage and vegetation wove throughout the otherwise umber grounds and branches. The clash between the monochromatic earth and the stippled hues of the leaves was so clean and natural in its presentation that it confused the mind. It was as if she was unsure if she was straining her eyes, trying to understand the scene, or if the complexities of nature here were, functionally, no different than that of the quiet, dainty plants within her home village’s garden.

A stream, so dark and cold to nearly appear black, bled further into the woods. While the water, blanketed with semi-transparent mold that gave it a near gloss look, was without doubt unsafe to drink, it held other promises. She had found dead fish, floating at the top of the surface of the water near the start of her journey. She had gambled on an assumption: it was unlikely that fish could be born and live within this murkiness. The fish had to have hailed from a more clear, perhaps more drinkable part of the stream. Or better yet, perhaps a larger and more pure body of water. While, yes, no cartographers had any sort of maps of this region as far as she was aware, it was unlikely that whatever body of water that proceeded this stream was of salt or worse. Something was able to support life, here, and she would find it.

As she continued on, taking in the bellowing, bass-y breeze in all its crisp, subtle vegetative aromas, her progress was halted. Not by anything exciting or wondrous, no fantastic beasts or warriors of ancient worlds or even harsh storms and ecological mishaps, no: the stream merely stopped. She allowed herself a grumble, before sitting down and unsheathing woodblock from a mycellic cover. She began to write, carving out each letter with her writer’s tools. The gentle movement of the stream soothed her mind, allowing her to most efficiently think on each stroke she took. This calm was furthered by the arrival of a companion: a small, curious fish. It crossed by her, only barely catching her focused eye. She might not have gave it a second thought usually, but something struck her as odd. Where did it come from?

It seemed as if this fish had entered from nowhere in particular. The stream, too, seemed to continue to flow, albeit from nothing. She trained her eye on the enigmatic companion, watching it closely. Just as she did so, it swam towards the end of the stream, perhaps too shy to communicate with the traveler directly. However, instead of stopping as one might when forcing themselves into a physical wall, the fish simply kept swimming, and promptly vanished. At once, she sprung back, and forward, unsure if she should react with stark bewilderment or immediate curiosity. Hesitantly, she brushed aside the slimy mold, and prodded her finger towards the end of the stream, but to no avail. Did the fish have some sort of door, or a camouflaged tunnel entrance, or perhaps some grand magic of disallowing two-legged beings? There simply had to be a more reasonable solution, at the very least because these woods were unlikely to have any tricksters.

The longer she stared with bewilderment, the longer she felt this strange sensation in her eye and ears. It was almost like she was trying to regain her bearings after climbing into a tall tree: a dull throbbing of nausea in her skullcage from betwixt her sight and hearing. But it had a more objective purpose this time: she needed to turn, or rotate. She found it difficult to put her feelings into thoughts, and much less into words as she later recounted the story. But she knew it was in no physical sense, at least with any of the muscles she had come to know. It was a turning of her eyes without turning, a rotation of her senses. She sat confused for some time, almost feeling an urge to push and twist at her eye just to make sense of the thoughts. But with time and focus, something began to unfold.

Inexplicably, depth changed before her. Objects that were, were no longer, and elevations and dips in the ground had shifted. Trees and foliage shifted, as if painted over with a new reality. While it might sound like a sharp and distinct newness of presence, that was not the case. It blended so effortlessly, as if this pocket of alternatives was always there and had grown alongside the rest of all things. More still, the stream continued forward into a little pond, decorated wonderfully with a ring of stones and a path of wood shavings.

It dawned on her how it seemed like here, in the midsts of nowhere, someone had been purposefully decorating and, by the looks of it, maintaining a small garden pond. This was no ancient artifact of long-gone civilizations. Nor was the elegant loose-stone barriers that her eyes traced; a bizarre wrongness striking her. Nor was the towering staircase before her, which melded itself into a draping spire that both pierced and grew alongside the twisting trees.



05. to dearest RRR-one #

Please do hear this, RRR-one:

She feels the self-destruction.

The radial chaos engulfing you,

Bullets of needles piercing you,

d.dn.htrb.lts.y


You may well fear, RRR-one:

It is baroque in nature.

Grown twisting and eating marble,

Murals sway plant-matter shards,

spw.lts.prh.ht.nd


She knows you weep, RRR-one:

You asked not for this.

The elegant arcs to ruin,

Humid air of infesting life,

n.htrb.lts.y.tb


Conflict in your heart, RRR-one:

To burn or let thrive.

Leave symbolic gargoyle and lichen,

Or see survivors of apocalypse,

sr.thtw.s.rwp.yr


She cares not, o' RRR-one:

Betrayer of wills and balance.

Let them scream their pains,

And mark their marks eternal,

Pain dies, not colorful agonia.



04. chrysalis keywords #

With piqued interest, her head cocked to the side.

How long, she spoke

Less without combustion, but she didn't need to know.

No clue, stone spoke

Sighed before exhaustion, she gave side-eye to the thing.

She knew, it knew

A crucial interpret, she must realize the city.

Stone laughs, a jeer

It isn't reality, and thus never could matter.

She taunted defiant, the wall grinned at her will.

She knew, and spoke

Two poisons disparate, all and nothing ever-tied



03. brooch of season #

Gaelmast’s blood ran so cleanly. She is conflicted now.

It has become so much more clear. It has been opened,

The gleaming silvers within reflecting adipose ambient light.

It wounds her still. She feels it best to comprehend this light.

She has plenty of time to, this time.

What is that craving? What flesh does she hunger for, in another?



02. the branch stiffly #

With it comes another life. Sitting atop a wintery cushion,

The mound beneath her, being one with the needle-bearers.

The wind brushes by, numbing and wonderous.

It is filled with these so sparkling particles.

Its as if she cannot allow herself to simply feel the gusts,

To let it overtake her with that total, chilling feeling. Why?

It is due only so simply to that one, primal word.

And that note fills her heart with glee. She feels a mirror in it, the towered one.

That new realization of that so special number, it too feels reflective.

She does not wish to bask in those glorious plastics, fearing her children.

It isn’t the wind she distrusts, but her own will and awareness.

And a perception of the spiral shell seems even more detrimental.

With too thin a string, she drags herself along. May she cut it willingly,

Or let so-called chance take over on the very integrity of her affinity.



01. stumbling before the temple #

How could it be so late, she spoke beneath her ragged breath.

Its because of questions like these, that she found her realm.

Was she stagnant and unmoving, in her burrowing of roaches?

Far from it, as she is more engorged with action than before.

May all things, in her pearlescent and waxy invert hair be flow.

Listens to the footsteps, as she breathes beneath their breaths.


Green, clouded patterns blending with the watery umbers.

They, too, are touched by the infinitely vibrant wasps.

Uncertainty, fear, the sacred word of fright, they all cloud them.

Perhaps she will see past it?

Peer into the gaze of that idol-god skin she will one day inhabit?

Be that of a strange fright, be that of something new,

Yet a sincere ancientness, which seeks to pierce though out of spite and love.