Thursday 15 January 2015

A Poem a Day 2015 (15): His dark places (The Fall)

I'm still watching The Fall! Wasn't sure about the main character, but she's growing on me. Just watched episode 4 of series 1, and so my thoughts drift to him again and trying to fathom out that kind of psychology, which is pretty impossible. So, today's poem is about this. Cheers.

His darkest place

Deep inside the dark wood
Near an oft-running brook
Beneath the high boughs
Of an overarching tree
Sits a house on its own
Where he resides alone
Beside himself
Beside the echo

In dark places he dwells
Thriving on the lack
Of colour, heart and hope
Exhausted as these things are
Within his four walls
The mirror gives back enough
The lights too much

This is his place
Where he shares his secrets
With no one
Except her
She is his cruel vice
His darkest secret
Spun on a fantasy dreamt
Now spent
If only to relive itself

In this reality
He shifts between the walls
Like a ghost walking
A paper-thin character
Living with no resemblance
Sleeping like the dead
If only

But she knows
Carrying his darkest deeds
Locked in her head
The body bears the scars
How she yearns for a key
To escape into the light
She has not glimpsed for an age

He strides
Back and forth
Deep in thoughtless thought
His mind sweeping yet still
An empty space
Where empathy once dwelt
These floorboards creak
Crying out at his weight
Being the only sound here
Where the quiet stiffens

She knows
What it is to be silenced
Hearing steps above her head
The ever-present threat of him
Lost where she is
Sheltered, she waits
Dying by the day
His darkest secret
Enclosed beneath the boards
In the in between
A prison of the body and mind

She sinks
Not knowing whom she’ll meet
Either he or his other self
One who befriended her
One who betrayed her
Jagged is the heart
Of the one without
Shattered, she sits in darkness
Her fate long sealed
Still holding on
To the wisp of a hope
Plagued by the echo
Of his footsteps

copyright Vickie Johnstone

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