…a thousand voices (Trigger warning: Themes of mental illness)
Memories delicately dancing
just out of my reach
ever destined for darkness
as they shift in and out of sight
my mind conceals the truth
as my eyes tell me lies
I am drifting away from the world
into a different time and place
reality is always lingering
in the dust and the shadows
easily forgotten in the moment
the ebb and flow relentless
waves of madness roll over me
slowly retreating back to the sea
where the echoes of me are drifting away
like petals lost upon the carrying wind
I am destined for breaking
those once familiar things
fading into the ethers of time
one soul a thousand voices
constantly whispering in the darkness
just as fallen leaves shift and whisper
in their inevitable demise
once vibrant now colourless
circling like shadows
under a shadowless sun
the rustling songs of lost souls
endlessly calling softly to me
I exist now in two places
I know this is hard to understand
perhaps impossible to comprehend
but I am here and also not here
we can see each other myself and I
no matter how far we travel
we walk the pathways of night
ever together yet ever apart
and with the rising of the sun
myself and I return to me
just a temporary merging
forever lost in the ethers of time
lost to the chaos and madness
where even we cannot see
who is I and who is me
only brief intervals of peace remain
I ache for the calm moments
the warm caress of the sun
the simple songs of the birds
and the whispers of a gentle breeze
but the darkness relentlessly stalks me
and the tempest swallows me whole
carrying me on its destructive journey
where rare glimpses of light are now fading
I stare at myself in the mirror
until only my ghost remains
locked beneath the glass
I see I have been left behind
© Ann Bagnall
