Where all the darkness was.

Where all the darkness was.

Something drew me back here, years later. Death has snapped this
place
shut. Time has swallowed our enchanted wood, our childhood.
Odd to think what this ragged heap once meant; odd that I'll
amount
to a similar dark patch of earth. It's saddening to see what once had
power enervated, nothing but a hideous tangle of remnants. Each
tree-stump
a giving-up, a cancellation, a fullstop.
(Death as the ultimate abbreviation.)

But there is something more to this haphazard clump of broken
trees.
So many sharp angles, jagged edges, things severed
but not removed: so much doubt.

I come back here in my sleep and it bears down on me like before.
Inside there is a fire burning. I stand where night begins. Behind
me
is the daylight, I can hear people's voices but I'm not
listening.
Everything else is faraway. I do not resist. And I am not scared.