The spell that we have been living under

all our lives is weakening, sister.

The world is changing

and everyone is just holding their breath

We are released into the wilderness

We wander through the primordial forest

strangers to it, strangers to ourselves.

We stalk the shadows

that stalk us

in the back alleys of a haunted city

that we used to call home

We inhale and exhale

the smoke of illusion

We put on new clothes

for new occasions and do mention the hiss

that the smoke machine makes

as we passively watch

the undulating tendrils of smoke that it sends

stretching, unstretching, swimming through the unrecognized air

hanging unchallenged until it melts into non-existence

just like the things that we do not say

the things we are not allowed to say

We do not say what we mean

and soon we may no longer know

what we mean when we try to say

what we think we know –

what used to be so clear

has become a fog

and ourselves another surface for it to settle upon,

ourselves as obscure as that which it conceals,

which is what we conceal,

which is the crime

of not believing what we are supposed to believe,

the same old guilt in a new disguise –

We are heretics, just as we have always been.

We are heathen.