Web of Elysia

Like you,
I have found myself
ripped away
From the light
A prisoner
To the shadows
Each step
falling a little deeper,
into myself

I�ve been locked away
Without a key.

Time wears on,
Wears thin.
The hands of clocks
Keep spinning
In circles.

I ache for gilded
apples in the garden of Eden,
semi-sliced to reveal
my wishing star
to feed a hunger
that overtakes the
deepest longings that I dream
in this perpetual night.

I swallow
the bitterness,
raped by my frailty.
Not once, not twice�
Six times the shadows lifted my skirt
And taught me what it was to
be a woman.

Broken abstinence
dangling heavy
in shame
weaves my web
wrapping
tighter
tighter�

The serpent constricts.

Where have you gone?

My mind spins
away � I am lost to you.

Perhaps it has always been this way.

But then I feel your fingers,
tearing the web,
and I am blinded
by the light.

I hear the whispers
like a thousand children
talking secrets.
Chanting a million
times
over and over
again.

�She has returned.�

I am not who you think I am.

These eyes cannot handle
the light as they once did.
And child in me is dead.

Stepping out of the cocoon
of life�s limitations
I have learned
what it is to be truly free.

Welcome me,
not as the girl
I once was
but as the woman
I have become.

I know the secret
of the phoenix.

I know
because I am that secret.