I will know you

Ever the prey, capture is a different kind of death you learn.  

Shame, panic, terror.  Crimson drops of blood make art on the ground, your blood, but the art is co-signed. 

Gone in a breath, carried away in the ash remaining after the light has stopped shining through a window you swear this cell didn’t have before.  Pull up, legs through, you’re free, or at least out.  You don’t run though, they would expect that.  You stop without freezing, just a pause.  You gather your ribbons and stones and allow the path to be revealed.  Bloodshed is never for nothing. 

Eyes closed in reverence now, your footsteps sink into the earth hallowed by your sacrifice, your blood, the pulse it carried seeps deep.  Beats in time with the dark beneath it all. 

Your fingertips reach of their own volition to the ground and swirl the new color that has been made here.  It looks like burgundy but not quite.  Red and brown, yes, but also the black of shadows.  It will need a new name. 

Finger painting down your body, it seeps back in, yours but different.  Pulse of your life, infinite depths of earth, darkest shadows from your time below.  You are safe to be wild.

Be here

Less air than needed, constricted breath from that gentle squeeze, soft pressure that grips your neck.  Your body goes to the panic it knows well, that hand has been around your throat longer than your memories.  Palms scrape against the wet stone, your back body intimate with the porous grooves that do not yield.  What kind of predator plays with its prey?  It would be helpful to know what you’re up against.  While your days have always been numbered, your life is not in danger here.

Infinite darkness, breathtaking in its expanse and confidence.  As if you had the breath to spare.  When you asked to walk the labyrinth, to be shown, this is not what you meant.  This descent has teeth.

Full gasping breath.  You’re awake now.  When did the hand at your throat become your own?

You look at the darkness again and see it is within, not without.  You feel its pulse and see that it is just the sky of night.  Surrender to me, it whispers to you.  Let me be you lover, surrender and let me take you where you could not go alone.