The Girl Who Collected Shadows

The Girl Who Collected Shadows

She walked where moonlight disappeared,

where silence had a sound,

and gathered up the shadows

that waited on the ground.

She kept them in her pockets,

folded neatly, one by one,

and whispered secret words to them

beneath the fading sun.

But one night there was a shadow

that refused to come away,

it wrapped itself around her feet

and begged her not to stay.

She laughed and said, You’re only dark,

what could you possibly do?

The shadow slowly raised its head

and whispered, I cwas made from you.

The moon went black above her,

the stars began to fade,

the wind fell strangely silent

as every shadow stayed.

They gathered at her feet like wolves,

they followed where she ran,

and every step she tried to take

was taken where they planned.

They whispered all the things she’d done,

the secrets no one heard,

their voices crawling through the dark

without a single word.

Then shadows climbed the walls around,

and slipped beneath the door,

until she couldn’t tell which one

was hers anymore.

She looked into the midnight sky

and saw a thousand eyes,

and every one was wearing

the face she recognised.

She screamed into the darkness,

but the darkness screamed back,

then silence swallowed everything

and turned the whole world black.

By morning she was nowhere,

not even a trace remained,

only one small shadow

stood waiting in the rain.

When sunlight touched the pavement,

the shadow turned its head,

then smiled at someone passing

and quietly followed instead.

But nobody noticed something

beneath the morning sun,

the girl had never owned a shadow

the shadow owned her all along.