Shadows and Ash

Ashfallen, skies painted gray with charcoal flakes, the smell of coal washed over me. I could smell the furnace as blood smeared itself on gray rinsed grass, and as I marched on, more appeared. Could I have danced with a shadow? How would the light of my life have felt at my betrayal?

"Resentment and bitterness are too foolish to give in and so tempting to follow that it's frightening. " I confessed.

My feet led ahead of me, my pride was a victim of gluttony, and my heart was in a daze of self-pity. Why was the world so heavy? I wasn't the only one in pain, yet I felt so small. " Did anyone see me? Could anyone have heard me?" I wondered and prayed.

Fear once again struck me with pallid punches of disgust and contempt. The furnace whipped out infernos that seared my hopes to ashes along with my dead beloved and allies. The home I knew was an amalgamation of forest creatures hoping for a way out of the forest only to burn themselves in the furnaces hidden beneath the trees.

Realizations after discoveries, my hands sliding across walls and my feet slipping off the concrete, I managed to climb on.

The furnace shot blazed arrows from the canopies, sundering the land. I knew all too well that it was dangerous, yet " I couldn't help myself" into distorted sensations and recriminations for withholding morality to my right hand.

Or I could've helped myself, though I didn't want to. I could lie, cheat, and steal because we all did. Many withheld the means to our needs; we stole all we could take.

The sickening pull of "more" pushed me into a pursuit of discomfort. The discomfort led to growth and gave me self-righteous agony and indignation aimed at my flaws.

I had to hear his voice.

" Vanity paints a lovely picture; be careful. You know it will cost you everything. " My absorbed shadow echoed with laughter. The blaring of alarm bells rang violently in my ears as I kneeled without bowing my head.

" I will. I refuse to become the very thing I dread. So let us go! " I responded with eyebrows raised, withholding a scowl. Hunger will bring me closer to the truth than vanity ever will. So, in complete choice and foolish unprepared under consideration, I starved.

My stomach growled, steeling my resolve to leave the past behind, driving me further from the furnace I had once called home. Everything I knew burned to ashes this time, unlike all the times before, I enjoyed it. Also, unlike before, I'm neither ashamed nor frightened, neither destitute nor despondent.

The forest became ashes, and the charcoal flakes of distant memories washed away my ties to the forest. I am unbound by the ashes and unchained from the shadows that haunted me.

I will live to live another day.

I will live to love another day. Shadows can dance, and ashes can renew; only love can bring peace.