Unexpectedly, and for the first time,

the Twin Soul’s were bowed to.

Sharing a glance; they both thought

it was silly, bowing to another.

Their first attempted laughs were unconfident

and ended as awkward, wrenching tones.

So they tried laughing again intending

to hone their erratic giggling, honks.

Together they attempted to probe the

registers of their voice and laughs.

Playing with new noises they had

never heard, for the first time.

That was forever their favorite memory;

it couldn’t have been more defining.

From then on, smiles and laughs

followed the Twin Souls Shadow, echoing.

They just wanted to play -

to play forever and experience it all.

They were two of a kind and always pulled each other together -

but never forever.

They were forever uncapturable and unstoppable forces -

that did not follow the traditional rules of battle. 

Their heart beat -

half now waiting in that place they called forever.

Their love remains -

half now forever waiting to find that place.

Forever and ever -

These two Twin Souls, 

suffered immensely during youth

and the trauma showed

in their epic misadventures.

Their troubles were mayhem, 

that wore old scars 

on their bloodied faces, 

bodies, emotions, and frequencies. 

Their decisions were bold

and true with purpose

but their intended execution 

at times, very clumsy. 

Their movements truly confident, 

though haphazard and erratic;

often concept of time,

lost in the moment.

Some nights, frustrated snuffles 

and empathetic muffled cries 

rippled through Humanity's Halls

while telling their story.

(second draft in editing as of: 07/21/2018)

Our great oak tree stood atop our hill, which stood upon the land of our little world, that our woods grew within. She was old, immeasurably old, and she was very wise. We would travel to her often to sit under her embracing canopy. The intertwining of our vibrations was an experience that we coveted and cherished while she would caress us endearingly as we leaned back into her nurturing soul’s energy emanating from her soft bark skin. Her glistening leaves whispered stories of love and provided lessons of care while her shade provided comfort to our slumber as we napped along side her enveloping roots.

At times her graceful branches provided consoling shelter from the elements as we perched atop our hill mesmerized, watching the storms dance over our woods; their lightning striking its trees at random staining our retenas with entrancing glowing halos. Half blinded under the storms electric bolting spells we would tense in momentary anticipation as our breath was both paused and ripped from our chest by the rolling thunder that followed. The resonating clap of calamity produced in such proximity to our adrenaline shaking souls would echo resoundingly as it stumbled upon the hard bark soil between our wood’s trees or march en masse upon our field resonating upon its stone structures.

Occasionally our world would endure the brunt force of a tempest that would test the resolution of our great oak tree straining her upright resolution by throwing tornados like a child’s top toys. Their spinning destruction would careen through our woods cutting swaths of blasted splinter seniew limb marrow explosions or their raging dance upon our field of stone slab formations would inhale topsoil lacerating its polished grass surface.

Other times, usually after one of these storms, we would roll in the dew while taking in the gleam of a fresh rainbow as it would bound from our babbling brook far off the edge of the map which our world spanned. *?But, always, she simply promised to be a beacon of safe shelter, as at times we did not know where else to go and could find no where else to be.

Our great oak tree was akin to a mother for us as we grew, she took in our tales of epic adventures, securely held our reluctant accounts of misadventures, and absorbed the secrets concealed within our tears through her roots as they soaked into her sacred ground. She was always present, never missing from our lives; at least, she was always there to run to if we needed her and we grew to depend upon her consistant availability for as long as we both could remember.

She was always a part of our story though we could never remember when we actually first met her exactly. We did remember the first time we found our little world. The first time we stepped through that portal that appeared out of thin air and engulfed our young bodies. That first world we stepped into was vastly different all those years ago.

Our first visits to our world were brief as our adventures were constantly pulling us back to the reality we would later run from. Remembering our little world in those days reveals memories of a tiny brook that was calm and slow, its waters shallow with little life clinging to its banks or swimming in its rippling current. The hill we arrived on looked down at that brook from across a vast empty field with a tiny grove of trees standing at its edge; hardly enough to play in but they offered a place we could walk to when we visited our brook and a place for us to sit as we snacked telling each other jokes or reminding each other of how we first met.

That first world we found, I remember, our great oak tree simply marking the place from which our portal arrived to whisk us back to the world our battles were raging in. After all the years stepping through that portal and seeing our great oak tree and waving back at her flowing limbs as we departed it became evident she really was alive as more than a tree that we had given animation to in our minds. We realized she was sentient and possessed a soul with profound wisdom to share. Something in that new found nature we were drawn to and would sit captured for hours interpreting her whisper language attempting to master the words she always attempted to share speaking with her leaves.

As we grew, and our understanding of the whispered words learned, it became evident she was the keeper of this world we ran to but it was not hers. She confirmed it truly belonged to us. This was a place that did not exist before us and so it was ours. Her welcoming greeting to our entry into our world became more than a note of presence but fully embracing to the heart and her farewells just before we stepped through that portal to leave became lingering as we took in her worries of care and love. After many years, coming, and going, passing through that portal entry into, or out of our little world we came to comprehend she was eternal and that she would never pass out of our lives as she was safe here in this world; a world the battle fields of our realities never extended to.

We knew this pain of passing too well, as we watched our brothers and sisters fall during their battles. Warriors memorialized in our memories and hearts; felled by the harshness of our reality world’s bloody fields that our battles continued to rage upon. The bloody fields that kept us locked in our battles that we were struggling to survive and escape from. We knew she would provide sacred ground and provide refuge if there was ever a moment we did not know what to do with ourselves or each other.

There were so many changes going on in our battles we seldom took the time to note every changing detail of our little world and often failed to notice at all, as at times they were very slight like a child’s height measured showing an inch gain previously unnoticed between measurements. We did notice the brook’s path changing and there always seemed to be more fish lingering in its ebb and flow. We noticed there were a lot more trees as we got older and from source unknown giant stone slabs begin to appear in our field which we welcomed as play scapes.

These changes became more frequent and greater in our little world and they were mirrored in scope in our individual battles. Such as the slabs of stones began to stand upright or come together in piles, eventually becoming formations of unknown original concept. They formed circles at times and we could determine the position in the stars they seemed to align to. We later recognized this system of dating based on precession and studied the epochs of old lerning a greater understanding of our place within the story of humanities’ warriors. Other times they appeared to form some great leviathan resembling a water serpent type beast our tree whispered about. Tree houses began to appear in the tree’s of our woods later connected by rope and plank bridges or zip lines. Bridges formed over the brook with gazebos that would light up at night as firefly swarms had taken to brooding within their unique blown glass lantern mansions.

The times we spent together in this place began to have lulls or intense stretches where we didn’t leave for weeks or months then would both not visit for weeks or months, sometimes a year or two would slip by. We would always return however, completely amazed at the fantastic changes that had formed in our absence to surprise us; as when we found the agapanthus flowers that begun to grow along the edge of the woods where the trees gave way to our field of slab stones. We also marveled at how the brook had risen immeasurably in places creating waterfalls and the hot spring pools that had sprung up near to where a great bend in its flow had formed with amazing rock formations now running right at the edge of our field.

We found that magical place particularly beautiful as our woods, our field, and our brook all met in the same place. The sound structure of our world was perfect there, sitting in our gazebo built around a tiny hot spring. The sound the leaves made dancing in the wind and the sound of the babbling brook as it played along the rock formations there. This intersection of field, wood, and brook, marked by that gazebo attracted all the new creatures of our world and their sounds too added to the leaves and babbling water to create a song that uniquely echoed off the rock formations of our field. Sitting there with my eyes closed, the thrum of our world would hold my heart and freeze my lungs momentarily; it reminded me of your beauty. This was a song we sat and listened to every single time we visited our world.

Our great oak tree became our rallying point. A fixed location where we would wait to find each other whenever we would get lost in the world. She was the beacon standing tall that always called us home to each other. She was the guardian to our hidden woods and controlled its portal, opening it only for us and closing it behind us to ensure we were safe within. She would watch over our world from the top of our hill as we played within those woods and ran along the babbling brook or through the stone slap strewn field.

Our great oak tree was the mother of this world. She drank from the brook we would swim and often tan next to. She controlled the beaver dams that fed the stream. Never allowing it to spill over its banks into the field or woods as we played. She would use her control of these waters to feed the roots under the now vast grove of tree’s standing in the woods of our world. She ensured we were always fed from the brook as well. Its waters were always stocked with plump trout who fled from the swollen feisty catfish. Thickets of wild berries and nuts grew from its banks as its rocky bottom and smooth polished outcrops babbled away telling our great oak tree’s story in a language we never could quite understand.

Our great oak tree stood the stone slabs on end and placed them precariously in formations on our field to honor our fallen brothers and sisters. The formations marked the great battles we survived through or campaigns which were particularly brutal. Surrounded by single standing stones measuring well over our heads to mark a fallen brother or sister the formation’s locations within the field held a timeline of our story. Each formation following the next with single standing stones along the pathway running through the middle of our field as a grand memorial telling the story of our battle.

She is the mother to the woods which we regard as our woods. Each tree within an extension of herself. Each new tree a sprouting gift to us as a totem marking every memory we shared together and a measure of our love’s strength as she stood, gracefully, wonderfully, atop our hill surveying our woods. She provided the energy from her through her roots, into the banks of our brook and the berries, nuts, fish, and creatures we ate, reinvigorating our souls. She took the pains of our battle, holding them in a field of stone, while providing the woods of our memories that we played, sang, and danced in. I am forever grateful to have known our great oak tree mother.

I know she dutifully tends to our world with care and love. I can only imagine her leaves whispering sorrow woe wail at night missing her children as I remember the look upon her soft bark the day I asked her to close that portal behind me for the last time and never open it again. I know she will comply as any mother would to the respectful request of a warrior son. Before I departed our world for the last time our great oak tree and I embraced and acknowledged each other as she shared her final whispered lesson before she opened the portal and I stepped through its white and blue shimmering field.

I know her love remains as her tears flow from the limbs of her embrace into the roots that caress her fallen warrior daughter’s ashes that are buried at the far end of the field of stone slabs at the bend of the babbling brook where the water played the most and our woods shaded that gazebo we would sit all night in some nights listening to our world. I imagine the sound heard from that gazebo that our world made now as her warrior ashes imagined song as it rolls across the stone strewn field carried by the wind. I imagine our woods bowing their branched heads up the hill to their mother’s grief as she hums a long to her warrior daughter’s resting song.

I now understand, after all these years why she cultivated that amazing world for us. The place we ran to, the place we hid away from reality in. She maintained the world only we knew as a place just for us and stored all of our memories there and held our hardest losses on that stone strewn field. She did all of this and always provided a place for us and whispered life’s secrets into our soul for one reason and it was the reason we first came to know our great tree. That reason was love.

She was the mother of our love. She was an extension of the tree of life much like the trees of our woods. She represented the memory of our love and gave this little world of ours not only as a place to run to or hide in as we played dancing to our sang chasing the echo’s of our laughs but also as a place for it to be memorialized. This little world of ours existed as a place for our love to remain in The Great Tree of Life’s memory when ultimately it came to a final rest.

Our great oak tree’s final whispered secret was a promise. A promise to hold that love we shared and offer a place to burry my warrior sister’s ashes, just as she had always promised a place for us when we didn’t know what to do with ourselves or each other. She provided that place for my love to rest when I no longer knew what to do with it and a place for the ashes I clung to not knowing where to put them when it was time to let them return back to The Great Tree of Life.

Oakflection

22″x14″ Original painting - Spray paint on gloss poster board.

Original not available for purchase. Commission upon request.

Please visit my instagram to view full image and other painted works:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BkjifcFHiHJ/?taken-by=m.h.marie

Suggested/Related Writings:

Our World

https://theprose.com/book/1658/our-world

Her crown was a burden

and it’s weight was fashioned

as a mask of feathers…

revealing irony’s angelic, sinister smile.

The smiling mask promised

to hide the tears

flowing from the storms

that raged in her eyes.

tears that demanded

toll and name;

for the woman

that hid beneath.

The storms

whispered secrets

with rage

and vowed.

She

would

have

Vengeance.

Twin flame souls turned together as warriors and bounced, frolicking confidently.

Bounding upon excited skiping steps into the ironic game they had come to play.

Now was their time, to travel freely, in to their own battle by choice, not demand.

As the sun set, roaring laughter, joyful banter, and dancing shadows lunged forth.

Off key singing voices slowly faded into the battle with one final echoing giggle.

The battle for freedom had begun and the rules of the game were left undefined.  

The world suddenly stood still in fear, grappling with it’s surprising shift of fate.

This was now their game, the terms theirs to name; it was their antics to blame.  

Night came fast to claim the field; falling silent to a feint whisper: “checkmate”.

#Fiction

Image: hakubaikou - DeviantArt

Darkness registered the incoming assault and Darkness bellowed a great abstention. Followed by a noise that could not be described as it’s horrors overwhelmed the senses in the most wicked snarl of hideous guttural proclamation. The form of Darkness shuttered, phasing in and out, shifting through the heavy damp air.  Suddenly it’s form solidified.  

The Twin Souls were witnessing the ebony abyssal gloom emenating from the morose physical form of Darkness, clearly, their singing soul’s pressed hard into their lunge as metal crashed against stone as laughter and wretch clashed. 

Existence sighed in exasperated relief.  She knew these Twin Souls had earned their place and it was their flame’s true blaze that was strong enough to over come Darkness.   Existence knelt there. Outside that foul place, patiently listened to the battle rage. Existence taking respite for the first time in Eternity’s song chanting silently, pouring energy into Vengeance and Retribution from the very mother herself. 

Those near Existence stood staggered watching the great mother kneel.  Not understanding: she bended knee not in defeat or fear, but with pride and confidence,  as she awaited the privilege to affirm the twin champions and their flame.  So to did Time it’s self, as all of Verse pause.  They paused to witness the moment Existence, bowed to the power of her own creation, held within the flame of the Twin Souls. 

These Twin Souls and their unique and very powerful, very real, and ever growing flame that ignited here, in this moment, by the irony they met after so long was but a coy joke to Vengeance.  

They were both, at the same moment in time, on the path into the Synagogue of Darkness to challenge the power that lurked within as fate would have it.  Their destiny will be the greatest story that will ever echo through Void of Eternity.  It’s song will truly be told in the musings of bards across the waste of this world’s churned earth, for all of Time to hear. A tale of Existence’s champions who challenged Darkness.

Part 1:

https://theprose.com/post/218688/challenging-darkness

Related:

https://theprose.com/post/218835/death-s-whisper-promise

As warriors we shared twin souls; souls, of twin molds, meant to light a flame.

Life makes a twin soul for each of us as it scatters our existence on this world.

Rarely do these souls meet, but, when they do, something...unusual happens. 

Your monster that rages inside becomes your friend; it’s thrashing about ends. 

A custodian awakens and unlocks a hidden library, behind your glowing eyes. 

And, if lucky, your inner demon bows to your lead - becoming your guardian.

Related Write: https://theprose.com/post/218722/warrior-sister

She hid ever changing, yet playful, subtle expressions in her gaze, cues promising motion 

as her curves and edges were admired by the oceans themselves.

She was the presence of a storm, each crash of a wave, was the feeling her beauty brought 

to the beating heart and lonely souls of her brothers and sisters. 

She had a classic style all of her own and could adorn any mantel or crown with radiance 

upon her soft bronzy skins glow and her exotic curious features. 

She was the kind of beautiful, you couldn’t write home about; words were simple: feeble 

and the effort would promote time lost in complete admiration.

She lit fire in ones eyes with her presence and to look away was often met with confusion 

then desperately chasing her bouncing figure and flowing mane.

Related Write:

https://theprose.com/post/218722/warrior-sister

They were free.  They were together, and free...they just wanted to run and play never looking back and get so lost they lost sight of the fucked up battle torn world they were dancing and singing in.  They wished to forget the horrors that were strewn upon the gnarled landscape.

When the feeling of wanting to run subsided they stopped and stared deeply into each other.  Until they woke up wrapped in each other’s absolute presence of body, mind, and soul.

The woods they woke in were unfamiliar.  They were alive and pristine.  It was hard to imagine a place like this remained in their world.

These became their woods.  The woods they could always run to.  Woods the world forgot about that sheltered their growing monsters within.  They laughed as youth faded while they practiced their song, dance, and play.  These woods would set them free.

Related write:

https://theprose.com/post/218925/our-woods

Related write:

https://theprose.com/post/218075/remember