Are you real or just a dream?

Tell me who you are.

Come closer so I can redeem

this illusion of being far.

We brush past often, subtle or cavalier,

at every path and turn.

Yet, you walk away and disappear

Leaving me all astern.

So come back again, or just call me

Impatient as I am for you

I hope you step out of my reverie

and become a reality overdue.

Are you real or just a dream?

Tell me who you are.

Come closer so I can redeem

my illusion from afar.

I think the way the branches loom,

Gnarled, stretched out vines...

Dance and loom right in the shadow of a vine.

Their shadow scrapes across my window like a haggard man with some insane devout word on his lips.

Wild eyes, and crazy. Making me look away from him.

Reaching in, I can see him just about to snatch me and instead he whispers in.

Hand tapping thorny fingers against my window until he's in.

From his thorny hand, to his black iris, I cannot make a peep, I hear him start to say.

"Dream dream. Like thistle and leaves, I'll take away your decay.

Little blossom, Cherry blossom. You'll grow into an adult one day.

And if you give, me a soul to keep, I'll trade away the pain.

Dream. Dream. Thistle and leaves. I'll make it go away."

I close my eyes, squeeze them tight.

I'm not seeing him, but I hear, the devil in form. A penance on the desert beyond my bed.

Frozen in place, I might almost say, please give me what you can.

Instead I can't believe, my open mouth, and answer him this way.

"You cannot have what's not mine to give. I won't trade another soul for your aid.

But if you can, make me stand where I'd rather hang dead, I think we've got a deal.

Chase away, the evil- pray but I'm not looking to make a deal.

No more devils. I see enough."

I know he can't be real.

But if he is, and devil's live, I won't be selling him my soul.

Instead his offer takes a turn, one that I didn't expect.

"I'm not a devil."

I don't believe him, but I can only hold my breath.

"People call me all sorts of things. A devil. Faerie. Shadow Man and all things deft. Call me what you like, but I am offering you a heft. Hefty offers, a promise in gold. I'll carry you on my girl. To sweet adulthood and then you can smile, and the evil woman won't have hold. She can claw and grasp, take our body and muddle my mind, but I will fend her off.

I'll protect you from the evil witch so be that as it may. I'm here to carry you on away, rather than watch you go decay. I only ask you keep me here, a secret kept untold. For I am you and you are I. And I will never cease until you grow on old."

I went quiet, my mind thoughtful. And to be honest, I'll be bold.

I shook his hand and closed my eyes as he snickered from our lips.

The crazy lady. That beast. That hag.

She tried to shake me so, but the demon in me smiled prettily because that's not what she held though.

And here I am, letting my paper man go. He died on my eighteenth birthday so.

I woke up then. A screaming fit, because of all the horror that went untold.

And now I lay, lay myself down to sleep.

The shadow that once unfold.

Who wrapped a girl.

A girl like me, inside his dark embrace and stood bold.

Come back even as a shadow, even as a dream.

Come back were the bridge we burned rested and walk barefoot across the stream. Come to me.

Come across the glades of past unrequited slights, forget them and in my dreams at least visit me at night.

Come without the constructs left from our past and you will be welcomed to my core and embraced by all of me.

The enigma that left you is now an open book. I'm so much more, so my darling come and take a second look.

That which you never knew about will be obvious to thee. Uncovered are my depths, my self you had sought previously.

The real me that you could see through instinct and nothing more has dropped my fear and invites you here. Come to me amore!

Cross a field of sympathy to my lonely heart, and spark alight the fire that's died so I no longer starve.

Warm yourself, and find comfort in the gleam of its flickered flames. Stay as long as my luck can run, but I know you don't have to stay.

Your heart, a thing that floats on whimsy, and beats it's own traced path. Realistically I know it can't be tamed, and so I can only ask for you to come to see me.

As only you can see me. As only you can breathe me awake, alive, invigorate my life force, inspire me to survive!

So come back in grace and find my face to put a smile on, for if home is where my heart is then my home is gone, from me

Until you come back..