Timepieces

Impromptu: Part Three

Problem: I don't remember the prompts. I wrote these three pieces during the tough times of late December, when I was having significant trouble writing much of anything else. I missed the detailed, abstract novel of some of my earlier pieces, and tried to emulate that in these works. I don't remember what they mean or what they had to do with the topic of the writing meet.

--IMPROMPTU: PART THREE-- (Published Apr 1, 2022)

--REPOSE--

The light tugs at my eyelids, but I dare not look. My lashes are drawn tight in wreaths of searing brightness, my face upturned, hopeful, and yet rebellious. I feel its shards in my skin, seeping through closed lids, knitting itself into the same spiderwebbing shadows that will crisscross the room when I rise. The light burns. Taloned claws catch at my unwilling eyes. I am silent. I welcome only the dark.

Formless, amorphous, the shadow blooms before my eyes, darkness scratching in ever-widening fractals, shattering before my gaze. The light wavers, dims. I let the shadows lay thick and cold across my skin, blanketed in darkness. The tendrils of time long past, catching at my eyelids, teasing my lips, begin to relent. Darkness grows in vines, flowering and twining and stooped with fruit, caught like vises against my unwilling skin. I let them tighten, unwilling to release myself to the light. I let them pull.

--RELINQUISH--

I must rethink. I have been pushing myself forward too quickly, into directions I don't necessarily want to go in, for the last several months. Several writing projects have foundered, and I've found myself absorbing their guilt, internalizing their plight, when I must only absolve. There is nothing to feel bad about. I have done what I can. It is time to acknowledge what must be written, to release my passion from its bonds, to step in its tracks, It is time to rewrite my objectives, to see what is truly the most important to my work, to me. In this time of darkness if is time to relinquish the light. Let the darkness cleanse me, let it show me the way, and let me walk the path I am meant for. Let me forge it myself.

--RELEASE--

Tied at my throat is a pendant, a locket of trapped characters and plot woven into rich, flowing tapestries. Tied at my neck are the worlds of those who dream of us, the worlds of those who push forward into danger and adversity. In the tight-knit acoustics of a waterfall, all that can be heard is the dreams of worlds long past, worlds that have not come to be, worlds that slip over the edge in a flurry of droplets, unwilling to make themselves known. I keep my hand tight over the possibilities, letting the words of inked strangers flood through my fingers, deep in my skin. I listen, ready for their wishes, heeding their commands. Fingertips clattering, I breathe their freedom. Tied at my throat are a myriad of wishes, a twisting mass of thoughts and beliefs that tug at my bones, so hard it hurts. I open my hand. I twist the threads between my fingers, twined into the intricate patterns of a world released.