I walk around, broken glass crunching under my feet.
The dark walls of the castle rise all around me like formidable giants
They’re all around me, too:
Little girls with bonnets and moues,
Gentlemen with canes and cigars,
Stable boys finally free of their duties,
Women in silk slips and tiaras with smiles holding back hurricanes.
I meet every one of them, never exchanging a single word yet hearing their complete stories:
Stories of family found in the most unexpected places,
Daggers thrown from the most trusted directions,
Gold found, previously buried under a thousand maggots;
Stealing lives, intoxicated by jealousy,
Smashing bottles and hearts made of glass,
Dressing wounds with kind words and bandaging them with pure promises,
Finding a soul the same shade as yours long after the search had been abandoned;
Stories of love taken, and love given, and love cherished, and love manipulated.
They tell me about the several thousand stories that can be lived in one lifetime.
And as I pass from ghost to ghost,
My steps become slower,
The ground drifts further away,
Until I no longer walk.
With the last story told, my feet leave the ground forever,
My body has been shed somewhere behind, forgotten forever.
I am free. I am weightless. I am more alive than I ever was during my life.
〘 I wrote this the day before my add maths exam so now even if I get a bad grade I'll be comforted by knowing that I at least wrote a good poem before it. The playlist attached is the one I was listening to while I wrote this. It helped. Have a great day/night/whatever! 〙
