The Iron Maiden's Tale

When your soul craves escape from all the familiar that it runs so hard into the deep, that you turn around and realize no one is going to find you.

I have run to the point of total darkness.

Darkness that engulfs.

Darkness that becomes comforting and foreboding all in one.

Darkness that whispers "no one sees you anymore child".

Darkness that hisses its lies of why I need it.

Darkness that begins to chisel away at the warn armor.

Darkness that creates new armor.

Darkness that spews its lies of what I am.

Darkness that cuts to the quick of all my past transgressions.

Darkness that says not an angel, a monster.

Darkness that creates the cold, stone shell.

Darkness that puts me in my "iron mask".

When the maiden becomes the monster is a twisted wood filled with vicious wolves and mysterious barn owls watching every move this new friend makes. When the maiden runs so hard away from it all into the deep darkness to the point where she becomes the darkness. She calls this new place where wolves soothe the lonely heart with their torturous howling. Owls quietly accept a new mystery to add to their wisdom of the dark wood.

Will anyone find me here among the lonely and the wise?

Then a tapping, a coaxing starts to happen.

As if anyone could possibly be looking for...me.

If anyone really missed a soul not worth protecting.

If anyone really needed a soul that had been shattered.

If anyone really needed a soul that was bled out.

My soul sits still.

My soul sits resolute.

My soul in all of its iron, sits because truly....

No one could really be looking for me!

It's just another traveler.

It's just another wanderer that ran far enough to know fear.

It's just another soul that never really felt.

Because it never truly was broken and bled as deeply as you.

It will pass. It will fade. Traveler be on your way this is treacherous ground.

You my first love, my soul, have run until there was no more glass to shatter off this maiden.

You my first love, my soul, have run until you knew you had outrun humanity's courage.

Or so you thought.

I tell you beware of the glass stranger; it can cut deep.

I tell you beware of the darkness stranger; it will engulf a soul.

I tell you beware of the damage stranger; your soul may not recover.

I tell you beware of the cold stranger; it bites at even the strongest. Not that I want to cut, but the pretty mosaic the darkness shattered is the shadowed trail to the heart encased in iron.

Broken things are the bane of new things.

Broken things are humanity's refuse.

Broken things are the unloveables of society...stranger.

However...

Broken things can be mended.

Broken things can be more beautiful.

Broken things can be regenerated to love again.

Because all of these broken pieces came from the soul-giver. All of these glass pieces that were perfectly made and created in a compilation of mystic individuality are all individually beautiful and can be recreated. New wine cannot go into an old wine skin. There is much to read in the story of one soul's humanity, just by how it shatters when it runs its hardest to hide itself from humanity.

Some souls shatter closer to where they first left humanity.

For others, sometimes it takes years and years of running.

They are so far off the beaten path you do not even know if that soul exists anymore.

Can you hear it stranger? Can you hear the faint, shallow breath? Can you hear the soft murmur of what might be a soul still beating?

Iron is strong. Iron protects. Iron is defensive. Iron can cut. Iron is something that this soul has become entrapped in.

Stranger? Stranger why are you here? Stranger why are you here in the darkness?

Stranger why do you dare to traverse so far from the open road? Stranger what about the darkness appealed to you for a closer look?

Fair warning, I bite Stranger. Fair warning, I lash out Stranger.

I am being honest Stranger. I know the soul is alive, but there is much work and repair to be done. There is much that is needed to create a new wine skin in order to free the new wine that was refining behind the years of iron.

I hear you soul.

I feel you soul.

I am hoping it is not too late.

Not too late for second chances with better beginnings.

Not too late for second chances with better endings.

Stranger....

Stranger....

Stranger I whisper....

Why are you here?

Haven't you heard the gruesome tale deep in the woods of the maiden who became iron? This place is for the broken, the mystics, the wolves, the lonely, the wise owls, the souls that no one could see penetrating light radiating from their core. This place is for the cast offs of humanity once bled dry for their humility and kindness as if it was humanity's right to make that a currency. This is a place where wolves reign. Where darkness engulfs. Where souls that are bleeding, hemorrhaging out all over themselves come because the darkness and wolves and old wisdom are allies, not adversaries at the moment.

This is the lair of the Iron Maiden. The hiding place where her soul inhabits its iron mask to protect her from any more damage. Be careful where you step. The glass has not yet begun to sing to her as to how it needs to be put back together. She is lying in wait for something more, something deep, something that when she runs to the edge and jumps the wings appear and her soul can soar.

She is lethal to the touch. She was so worried about everyone else's healing to save their humanity, she - herself, forgot about her own mortality while trying to give wings to her own immortal soul. She is harsh. She can stand alone. She will not yield wisdom and truth. She is what she is stranger. And she is not what you think.

So, Stranger, why have you come?