Emergence

For many years, I've wintered here: This watery grave, turned stone cold in endless snow.

The walls this well erects around itself have held no meaning, save the one that I have given them in solemn grief. Meaning, in the the sense that there is reason to it. Reason, in that I have needed one to stay so small. Small, because I could not seem to see the water rise from the heaviness in me, or let it lift me up with it like Aesop taught us.

The day you coaxed me in with words of friendship, of love, the day you stole my clothes and ran away, adorned in name: my name, alone; alone, you left me here. Naked and ashamed, for all my faith.

Faith, too, was a name I had once worn... One I now know meant only to cover up the truth of who I am. Truth is who I am, of course, at least it was, for what it's worth; and it was once worth something, I had thought. 'Til falsity adorned itself in mine, and tore away, to parade itself in front of false prophets holding trick mirrors.

I can hear the sound of birds and cracking of thin ice above me. Gentle drips and subtle splashes of rebirth from death. I can feel the breeze begin to sweeten on my face, and the stiffness start to loosen from my breath.

After all, these walls were not so tall to keep me in. What kept me here, perhaps was not the nature of your crime, but the ease with which it lent itself to virtue. Too long have I anticipated that the eyes of men would thaw, for their tears to flow freely again; enough to see you as you are, imposter: A facade.

A thief.

A Lie.

My frost-bitten fingers, long submerged and over-ripe, grip the walls like newborns do onto their mothers. I will overtake them, as one does, and build a pyre. I do not belong here in this ill-besotted tomb, doomed to waste away in pools of gifted ire.

I do not deserve to see the world slander my name from the comfort of a throne made of barbed wire.

I am awake now, and I am coming.

The emperor will shed his robes and finally be seen for the wolf in bloodied lambswool he's enshrouded.

The glaciers and their acolytes will melt down into rivers, berthed by tears of innocents no longer stiffened from your fear. Hear the steady stream of frozen lakes now overflow onto lands that once banded against their mothers.

Winter was a construct you embedded in my mind like the bricks you handed me to build this prison. You promised me a castle made of sand, took my hand and guided me into a sea of your own sorrows; left me here, abandoned, to the terrors of your mind while your kind destroyed the hope I gave tomorrow.

Scarcity shall mimic me no longer.