Witching hours cast and brewed, fermented and decayed, over the long, illustrious corridors of the Forest. Nestled into the piquant edges, the frothing blooms, the eldritch, sinister catacombs, flayed and plagued, cackling and moaning, casting their spells and mocking the aching swells of innocent doldrums. Even amongst all of its dying wails, its banshee outcries and heartless persistence, its treacherous beauty and scandalous, probing eyes, she couldn’t fear the glade. A belle raised beneath fir and pine, ash and soot, decadence and upheaval, clinging to the moral blossoms, the persevering blooms, the elegant, woven promises of brighter tomorrows and victimless days. But she was not an unwary, oblivious creature, fallen from the branches and boughs of ignorance and ineptitude, and though the shadows shifted into fragments and shards of all of her regrets (perhaps I shouldn’t be here, lost in the dying stars and the earth’s last rites), she ventured further, deeper, became another rose trapped in the labyrinth. Not as a sorcerer, but a lingering element dipped in ambrosia and flickering with luminescent light, harpsichord strings roughened by the nefarious iniquities, the plights, the paragons, the virtues of previous actions and brutalities. The nymph returned to the roots of enigmas and quandaries, wandered, pursued, reflected upon the vast nuances, the interplay of Stygian curtains and taffeta rays, the collision and repose, the respite and entropy, laden amongst each perilous affliction. She strode under the widening expanse of darkness and light, wore out pathways laden with primrose, with moss, with weeds and hibernating, dormant grass, shuffled then stepped, stumbled then danced, amongst the arduous halls and wayward parlors. At first, purpose had been strong, convictions waltzing behind her lids, pressing deeply into her membrane as brilliant motives and aspirations, searching and inkling for flora, verbure, cleansing stalks and fronds so that even when her songs were ill composed, healing could be obtained. Imogen ensnared several herbs between her teeth, gripping them tightly, maneuvering along the shades and gloom, the silent parallel to her unsung ambitions.

But now, with yearnings and aims clustered, more entangled from the ethereal air, flowered and besieged her with an old, compassionate existence. Instead of leaving, they delved onward, moths to flames, honeyed and candied, persistent and enduring. Undying coals tormented and anguished, seeking out the reticent, deluded strength once so enamored, lacquered and enameled to their chests, to their hearts, to their souls. Lena swindled her way past trunks and over fallen, rotten logs, dove into the frays of silhouettes, nocturnal gloom and fragmented sun, to remember, to recall, the art of her passions, the fruit of her assurances and certainties. She tested and explored, searched the wider boundaries of her sentiments, felt fear trickling down her spine and then the spirit of her harmonious essence lift, higher and higher, until her mouth broke out in song, in hymns, in hums, surrounding, pervading, providing the endless bounty of birds, of sonnets, of lyrics cast from everywhere and nowhere. They passed by the pool of red, watched the rim of its opulent, ichor-rich tragedy ink and dot, maim and deprave, and still continued onward, never ceasing the eternal aria hastened by her lips. Like fragrant hallelujahs, they traipsed into soulless paradigms, into haunted warrens, into tangled snares, and didn’t look back – unearthly, fine, subtle beasts of the copse. Is this what its like to heal?

[Open to anyone. :D]