#NationalPoetryDay - These twisted paths we tread

A poem for National Poetry Day...

These twisted paths we tread

She slides between these walls
one foot, two feet, a hand and two
this is the space in which she lives
breathes, empties all that she is

she knows, where the eye seeks to spy
through circles drilled into the walls
the hidden, they watch, scratching idly
starving for love, the thing she lost

the ones she forgot were left behind
they hide now like ghosts in the leaves
rustling they leap upon the breeze
echoes of the past haunting mirrors

the scribe knows, he laughs sometimes
knowing all the things he does
it only makes him fail, too self-absorbed
to comprehend what she really is

the ghosts they circle inside these walls
pushing their fingers through the paper
seeking to caress the curls of her hair
twisting, she knows they linger

inside, watching where the beetle runs
trailing all his miniscule unlived lives
between the pages of a book unseen
she lived it, breathed it, all that ripples

thus she dances here alone, casting
rainbow dust upon the bleakest grey
the steel that rusts in crusts of red
rosebud offerings to the elements

laughter so raw covers an ache so deep
like a monster it yearns to spring
inside, where the waiting ends
inside, where the spiral grows

there’s a twist in the passage that eels
a malevolent darkness screams
opening the chasm that yawns awake
stealing tomorrow for its own sake

it twists, but nothing can touch her,
lost as she is in the echoes of her past.


copyright Vickie Johnstone