I only closed my eyes for a second

The death forest surrounds me.
Ghostly white trees mocking me in their silence
Woven bleached bones of all the fallen
bound together, glowing under a pale full moon
Empty eye sockets peering at me
as I weave in and out of their grasp
Inside the mist, stumbling without guidance

There’s an old man, sitting in one of the trees
laughing at the insanity but oddly distressed,
smiling at me. Cackling with glee but weeping
as he reaches out to touch my hair and sweep it
behind one ear. It’s comforting in it’s creepiness

He’s whispering to me in a smoke scratched voice
Comfort is as comfort does
Redemption is not at the foot of a hill
Catch a tiger by the tail
and it’s your blood that will spill
All I can hear is booming laughter
that shake the leaves of the bone dead trees
and as I watch them fall to the ground and turn to ash
I realize the old man never even opened his mouth

Then it’s all gone*

I’m back to sitting in front of a stone cold hearth
ripping pages from the book of my mind
and watching my Memories feed the fire
as I poke it with a red hot piece of steel
It was all the fodder for the fire I could find
Sipping from the crystal goblet filled to the brim
with Lies mixed with Deceit with a slice of lemon
and a dash of Arsenic just for a kick
The fire casts prisms of light bouncing from the crystal
onto bare walls to show a slow waltz of torture
that bleeds down the bricks in sinking desperation
A rainbow of colors from a ***** oil slick