hallucinogenic words spray-painted on the inside of my eyelids
she said phrases to me that I knew I knew already
I couldn’t understand why she was repeating herself.

she spoke of great trees sulking in the garden
hidden a little ways from her house
and of strange gnomes that wandered the paths at night.

I asked her if she would take me to show me the wonders
she shrugged and brushed me off as always
I should be used to this, being nothing more than a shadow.

she took me by the hand and led me out of her house
and left me on her doorstep
I stood in the fading sunlight and wondered what I had said this time.

I turned abruptly from the house
as I decided at that very moment that I would no longer be her friend
and walked quickly away down the sidewalk winding down the hill.

I didn’t hear from her for weeks
and soon those weeks turned into months and years followed
and still her spectre haunted my mind.

one day I decided to call on her house again
and see what she was doing with her life
after all this time, wondering if she would even remember me.

I knocked once on the door and waited,
but there was no answer, so again I knocked louder
and a face peered from behind the curtain.

it looked like her but I could tell it wasn’t.

the lady answered the door
and I recognized it as being her mother
and she threw her arms around my neck.

she explained to me that her daughter had disappeared
it was the exact day that I had seen her last
but no one could find a trace of her anywhere.

she commented on how much I had grown to resemble her daughter
but I just shrugged it off as she explained further about her daughter’s obsession with the garden
and the little gnomes she had swore she had saw there.

I nodded in agreement remembering too the last time I had seen her
and told her mother this and she seemed to sob more the more she looked at me
and said she couldn’t get over the resemblance between us.

she led me into the house and I looked at the familiar pictures on the walls
and at the familiar carpet on the floor
and words began to take shape in my mouth, that weren’t really my words,

I looked at the lady and said,
“mother, it has been so long, but it is I, your daughter, who have returned,
I was never any farther than myself as have mistakenly thrown out my shadow

“I wandered away a different person with no memory of anything
except fragments of who I thought I was and I was wrong
to have tried to rid myself of the black part of my soul, in turn destroying my memory.

“mother, can you forgive me for forgetting myself
and you and everyone while I wandered about
trying to pretend I was whole, instead of being only a fraction until now?”

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