The oracle of the withered roots stood silent above me,
As I wandered beneath a sky split by its eye
While silence whispered thunders and nightmares,
And the origins of the world gnarled like a bone-stuffed monster
Its speech was in a tongue older than rot.
They called it the oracle,
The tree that remembered all betrayals,
and fed on forgotten truths.
Around it, ash-walkers and crawling fates
circled around the blue flame of judgment,
and I, unnamed, felt the mark sear through my skin,
As slashes that revealed my defeat and destruction.
All kinds of nasty creatures surrounded me as I was their potential prey,
They were ready to violate and devour me,
They were there to rip my heart apart into infinite fragments of dreams.
Each tree was the custodian of skulls and arcane rituals,
As they moved forward their sacred flame,
A blaze blue like the deepest abyss of solitude.
Tempted to adore this blue flame or this blue fire by all these creatures that at times seemed obsessed by it, at times frightened.
From these spirits and monsters, I could perceive fears and enthusiasts and enthusiasms that alternated in their life, which could not be called joyful, gentle, or even glad.
The oracle of the withered roots gazed through its curious and overbearing eye, trying to peer into my heart, but in vain. My soul was a labyrinth of torments and delights, and being unable to discern its true essence, it grew angry with me and condemned me to a restless and uneasy life, to wander in search of myself.
The skulls smiled at me with their grin,
which seemed more like a mockery,
as if to say: “Soon enough, you too shall join our kingdom.”
The other winged creatures brushed past me
With their curious, cunning eyes,
as if to urge me to leap
into the abyss of the unknown —
At first, it appeared to be a small pond,
in truth, it concealed a chasm of nothingness.
Elisabetta
