Where Have You Gone?

You were there, unmoving, solid state, guiding everything that went on under this roof. You had a plan for nearly everything and even in those instances where you didn't you turned the situation to your favor. Short tempered you charged through issues wrestling them into submission with your quick whit and rationale, you were formidable. Looking up to you there would always be a piece of advice you could share with me to help me, be it straight forward or between the lines. But most importantly I could confide in you. Where some, if not all, of my friends failed you were there to listen and calm the fears, anger, terrors, that welled up inside me.

Now I sit here wondering just where you went. You left that day, never to return. In your stead was a completely different person who I had to get used to all over again. No longer was there this high strung, short tempered, fastidious, domineering man, but instead...something that I could no longer place unshakable confidence in. I value that you are still with me, life would have been only more tumultuous without you. However losing that powerhouse of a person that I looked up to, modeled myself after left a shadow on the memories that had been made.

Since that day I had lived with your shadow as my guide, hoping to hold onto a fading perception for as long as possible before crashing back to life. I knew you were different. I didn't deny that. Where my friends now fail I no longer have that solid figure I looked up to. There is a hole, pit, that grows larger with the realization tonight that who I once confided in no longer exists.

Dad.......where have you gone?

Frozen Fortress...Petrified Prison

The cold, unmoving place locked down for years finally began to show what it truly was. Coated with sheets of ice, layers thick, the original structure could not be seen through the frozen armor. To find a way inside meant to brave the very cold that created the fortress, standing solemn and alone.
But the environment turned it to its advantage. For while the sheets of ice kept the fortress impenetrable it also made it inoperable. Whatever had resided within had now become entombed by the place and its frozen plate-mail. The foundations shuddered under the brittle cold, the beams and quarters glazed over with a clear polish. It creeped everywhere. And now the fortress would begin to feel the paralyzing bite of a winter cold...alone.
.......never found the words to say.

Taking a Walk

I'm taking a walk down this shrouded, dark path again. I can see the footsteps I left behind but they veer off in a different direction this time. I'm going down a new path although it seems all too familiar. In my hand a candle gives me its light, the yellow flame flickering as I move. The small halo of light lets me see where I'm going if only a foot or so in front of me. There's a small comfort in that. The light is beautiful in this thick shroud around me. Looking down I see footsteps left behind by me and realize that I'm traveling down the same path only this time I can see. This tiny, flickering, flame somehow made the path appear different than before. Shadows are held at bay (even though they still reach for me), the cold bites at my skin reminding me like an old friend, and footprints leading me to the same end.

No. This time will be different. The outcome will not simply deliver itself. I will arrive at it upon my say so and arrive at WHAT I want.

.....only the foolish have nothing to say.