I don’t have the words.
In my weakest moments
I sought the power of symbols,
learning how to weave a series of lines
to name the monsters of my life.
Dragging them out from the shadows where they hid,
reducing them from nightmares to mere scratches on parchment.
Or orchestrating a divine procession from a pen
that would paint a better picture of life in my mind;
like a spell spun from a sorcerer’s silver tongue.
As I struggle now to articulate and name these things,
these most monstrous things,
I am reminded of that helplessness
as I stand static in their shadows;
crippled and bereft of all magic.
I don’t have the words.
Because I am somewhere south of zero.
In a cold place of long night,
that consumes all of me
just to make it to that far off sunrise.
To that first break of quite luminous warmth
shot straight through this night’s dark chest,
that dares me to hold fast the hope
that soon, very soon,
I will have the words.
I will again have these devils named
and make grand parades of their funerals.
I will capture the very essence of that resplendent dawn
that crowned my head in golden victory,
and there I shall leave it.
Etched in the icy ground with my frostbitten fingers,
a most glorious spell to light the way,
for all the others who find themselves
somewhere south of zero.
– ian gallows