Shadow Chatter

Well of Mirrors (Down In it)

I fell into a well the moment I was born

My newborn knuckles scraped the sides

of the tube of stones

And I was arrested

Voices at night

told me of the garden above the well

and the hell below

As I grew, I found moments of strength

and I climbed up towards the turquoise sky

with its candy clouds

and wafts of lilacs

I fell into moments of weakness

where I slid down towards icy waters

The lowest inches of the well are smeared

with my blood

and flecks of my skin

Where I resisted

"Don't give up!  Don't give in!

Don't end up there!"

One day the sun hit my face in full

I opened my mouth and the hot ray focused on my heart

I shuffled up the well with shaking limbs,

knuckles worn down to the bone

clicking against the bricks

I rose a victorious hand to greet the day

The garden overworld

was but a perfumed painting

My palm slapped against it

The blue sky

The teasing petals in their trajectories

Two dimensional 

and inert

I curled my arms around my 

thin ribs

I drew my knobby knees

against my navel

I fell into shadow

I fell into the cold micro-ripples

I had been forbidden from

all my life

"Heaven is up,

Hell is down,"

I'd heard all my years

Hell can have me.

For that is where I fell

When I found heaven was

Lacking depth