μάγισσα

I step through a rose garden in a white cotton dress. The breeze comes in from the north & smells like the sea. Vines and ivy cover the limestone walls. It is bright and eternally hopeful. My bare feet in the grass are firmly planted like roots of a willow tree. I feel as if my soul was made here.

Although I’ve never seen this place, I know it is my Ultimate- for I have seen it in my Mind’s Eye long before I stepped foot here. By the fountain in the center play 3 children who I have never seen, yet their features are so very familiar. A twig cracks under my left foot. Their faces light up & somehow we know we belong to each other. A joy I have never known radiates out of my chest and flows out through my finger tips. I fall on my knees, arms outstretched. An embrace. I swing them in my arms and we play for hours in our secret garden.

Hours pass blissfully and effortlessly, soon the sky is dark. I don’t know how I know this, but I know there’s a house just up the path. The children begin to lead me there, pulling my hands eagerly and excitedly. But a coldness sets in- I can’t remember who awaits us in the house. In confusion, I turn back to look at the garden- but it is charred and black. Eyes wide in horror I face forward- the children’s faces are grotesque and voices distorted. A guttural moan escapes my lips as I realize I can no longer remember their names. Doubled over. No more laughter, the sound of my jagged breaths are all I hear.

As if growing impatient, an invisible force lifts & hurtles my limp body toward the house. I slam into trees and various obstacles along the way. I levitate above the doorstep, but when I do not knock after several seconds, I’m dropped. On the door step, body broken, bleeding, & in excruciating pain. I know it could all end if I knocked, but I can’t bring myself to see who is inside. I lay and weep, a pile of red cotton and mangled flesh. I go on living for what feels like days.