The Therapist

(photo by Kingston Lounge)

All the agony and pain she gradually crammed between the books,
each spine, a bloody tale,
each cover a relived dream,
a bookcase, a shrine and a held-back tear,
a flash of memory, a gutted zombie walks out of its tomb.

And though she knows all the secret, magic words,
she never says them out-loud,
she is afraid of a heart beat out of tune,
and of death, himself - he might come out and collect-
and then all the words will die with her.

She keeps the words in a glass bowl,
like marbles and fish alive,
she feeds them hope and they grow fat,
but never comes round to the tedious task,
to write them down and pass them around,
like proper witches do.

The bookcase, ladden with facts and recipes of out-wordly tasks,
casts its shadow in the dark,
she feels it even when the lights are dead.
Does she dare, with paper and ink, to pull the volumes out,
to relieve the dreams and take the truth down?

The red ink spills on the floor and makes the white sheets red,
she doesn't mind, she doesn't care,
she knows, she feels,
the stories are real,
and that even she, the most powerful witch, must not be spared.