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.