Embers

By Gildae

Walk with me to the dark side of the moon.
Which isn’t really as dark as you might imagine,
Because it is lit by a thousand campfires burning,
Burning stories that keep this world turning,
Crying; a flaming pyre, whose only purpose is remembering,
The lost days of my youth.
When questions didn’t mandate sarcastic answers,
When curiosity was the purest, life-giving virtue,
When my television was a mountain that I could climb,
When the world of polite pocket smiles hadn’t yet blemished my skin,
And the niceties needn’t have been observed.
And the truth, the truth was still there to be found,
If only my small and straw-like fingers could wrap around it.
So will you sit with me, on the dark side of the moon
And wait for the sunrise, knowing that it won’t come?
I have waited for a thousand sunrises,
Watching a thousand burning campfires,
Willing them to burn faster and hotter to chase the spectres
And the serpents that hunted me until dawn.
Spent countless nights willing that the sun would rise.
But at the same time wishing for respite,
That the moon would pause in its revolution if only for a brief eternity.
But without the darkness how can I find my way into the light?
So I silently pray that the sun won’t write another day of age on my back,
Etch another sordid story on the skin of my face.
For every day that I age kills my innocence, jades my laughter.
Takes me further and further away from the days when I could cry.
When I could vent the emotions buried in my soul.
When I could feel.
When I didn’t sleep with my eyes open and wake up screaming every morning.
Sometimes the flames still dance before my eyes,
No longer preserving the vestiges of my youth,
But burning the fat off my soul, burning too close,
Leaving me empty, with only water flowing thick in my veins,
Listening to the hollow sound that my heart makes in my chest.
The smell of the smoke still clings to my clothes,
An ever-present reminder that treasured innocence will always burn.