The Ghost of an Echo: A Mad Collection of Mad Poet Poetry

Escapee

The ice that crunches beneath foot,

A cold breeze,

Cuts across pale cheeks.

A cloak shifts––

Ivory stitched,

Gold flecked,

Red velvet crisp like a fresh apple,

Against bleach-white.

The snow like thick,

Sugary frosting, smooth

And wrinkled

And untouched by human hand.

She holds up her own,

Grimaces, pants through numb teeth,

Braces for the wind far ahead,

That whips branches in the air,

And packs the snow deeper in.

Howls soaring through tuffed clouds high above,

Half obscuring a glittering crescent of

Moonrock,

And starlight,

Catching upon ice particles,

Sending them aflame,

A path winding through ghostly trees,

And a cackling shadow that stretches toward her.

She thinks of how far she has gone,

And how far

There is left

To go.

She thinks of the sword,

Ice-cold,

Bumping against her thighs and scraping against,

The snow that catches

On her clothes.

She thinks of the castle,

Sky-scraping towers,

Her home at the tip of the tallest, tallest

Silver bars her only enemy,

So that even now,

She is surprised not to see them,

In a world unconfined by stone.

The blood running along the ancient

cracks and ridges,

Ugly like the hearts

Dead in its corpses

Cold as snow

A shattering of glass

Inside and outside her mind

A forbidding

She would not

See those bars again

There had been a knife––

Right there

Perched on her plate

While screams had pierced through

Her aching ears

And a ring had shot through.

And before she knew it

The hate was left down on her feet

And over those scary walls

And now she was here

But she had never felt

So full of colour

And decision

That for once

She had life

Clutched

in

her

scarred fist

She found this horrible.

She found this beautiful.

She found she starved for

More––

She would not be contained again.