Black and White

Black and White

The 'Faraway Tree'stood clear and tall.

My eyes were bright, adventure beckoned.

Lost so young in imagination.

Tumbling words like a children's playground.

Insatiable need, spread like fever,

for more hidden places and corners.

To find such love for exploration.

Wardrobe, fauns and a snow queen take me

surfing on this tide of black and white.

Unable to stop the waterfall

overwhelming such a tiny mind,

until sleep would come and overtake.

They seeped into all the deep places.

Made it light when I needed them to.

Those letters and words that touched me then

were foundations for another time;

when childhood passed, and transformation

to adulthood was still so distant.

New horizons failed to appear,

and winters cold grip, held life frozen

in time. Like Wells I wished I could move

backwards or forwards, away from there.

King, Herbert, expressions of this place.

Twisted, malformed, distorted and wrong.

These worlds in which I travelled were bleak.

Distinctly dark, a new black and white

extinguished and buried reality.

So my survival was possible.

The day came when I needed to tell.

Strength arose, alongside fear, facing

the nightmare concealed so deep within.

Unbelief, the result I dreaded

was realised, evil rose its head.

Spitting cobras, verbal black and white

struck me down, and I laid in silence.

Poison deep in arteries and veins.

Wizards, hobbits, adventures were found.

Noiseless dark was brushed away, mists cleared.

Imperceptible the black and white

that broke the evil shadows of youth