Aetherland
Have you been there?
Halfway between sleep and awake I’m in a strange land Not yet fully asleep But certainly not awake The Twilight Kingdom Created for myself and by myself My dark crystal cave Flying through empty space I find myself walking here on an open lot Pale concrete under my feet Stretched out in every direction As far as I am able to see Startled and unnerved To my right I see a dismembered hand Creeping across the concrete Leaving a thin trail of blood as a footprint Slowly inching itself to intercept my path I shudder slightly and continue on away The sun hangs lazily Low in the sky Casting a red glow over the scene The heat emanating from its watchful eye is oppressive Siphoning my strength with each step An odd fellow approaches me He has five eyes and a deformed head And towers above me Eight feet tall hunched over He quizzically mutters “friend”? His mouth agape and cavernous Revealing razor sharp fangs Uneasiness grips me so I only smile As I continue walking You cannot travel To this place The Twilight Kingdom You merely find yourself there Unaware of how you arrived This place of phantoms and specters Where symbols are alive and speak to you Where frightening and fantastic things reside Disturbed by the deeper monoliths of mind Constructed towers built by you For you to visit And possibly inhabit for a time Destroyed with your leaving Crumbled back into the swampy mire of memory The concrete rubble of your consciousness Yet this Twilight Kingdom Mysterious and foreign It would be where I’d spend more time Than typing at my desk Paying my taxes Commuting in my car to a job that hates me If I could drive there To the place where metaphors manifest And ideas dance in front of me like sprites on fire If I could swim to those shores, or fly or walk Still, I know I’ll find myself there again I go there often enough without realizing Though I suspect that one day I may find myself there again Some distant midday When I should be somewhere else The day when all changes cease for me And I unable to leave Not fearful but wondering Will I find the way out again?