The stages of this ailment wracks havoc through my body. Vexatious attempts to conquer; become me. It began as all things do, a spring birth nipping exposed skin; testing the fragility and limits of the becoming. Little by little tentative blooming begins. Through kissed, bitten and hard pinched skin. Assaults on the juvenile unrelenting. More than hormones, chemical reactions take the blame. Flora sprouts through the hardened dark, softening sporadic perimeters, lashed by sharp spring-sight-steeling-rays - momentarily monumentally blinding. Once this is over, it’ll be ok. Fate awaits. They said I had some years to change, some precious time before it was too late. Wild horses tear thunderous lumps through my soul; stallions each gunning for control. Endless war rages within; the battle of self. The therapies, the drugs and carefully selected words. None ever any good. The rampant rage is on, no war is without bloodshed; relieves the pressure of dismissed, displaced youth. One must be real if they bleed; alive even in fantastical Maiden daydreams. Suppression of the whispering thugs a delicate parity; equilibrium of what? One cannot be sure - what if there is no cure? Fate never waits. Time, she keeps flowing through the bottomless glass. Smoke without mirrors; dense, dancing swirls too black to pass. Maidenhood ends, scar tissue thickens not mends. Strands tangle in knots unseen through the haze of smoked days. The Mother is one which cannot be skipped; the fear of becoming the Maiden’s own too hulking to dismiss. Summer’s heat pelts down like the belt; sporadic lashings through which you must stand, never waver. Fane unfeeling through the weeping welts. So many mistakes, learning aplenty with a war thirsty wraith wailing shrieks in the ear. Overshadowing youth whispers, the memory of what was terrorising for so long, now a quiet comfort of historical storm. The dust of the battles must eventually settle; submit, surrender. Breathe it through; she’s coming for you. Autumn bleeds summers setting into winters webbed ebbing. A witch must relinquish the right to fulfil natural potential when the hourglass quickens towards inevitable expiration. The time of the Crone dawns and with it awash with insight previously unknown. Suddenly the wonder uncoils and monstrous ponderous mysteries are starkly revealed before the last breath is sealed. Fate never waits. Any one day can be the day she whispers. The voice of all time and fate entwined; “Dear daughter, you are too late. You’ve relinquished your fate.” Fate never waits.
© Natasha Sinclair
First published in Iron Faerie Publishing’s ‘Four Seasons’ anthology
Clan Witch & Word Refinery 