charcoal gum
It begged me to stay, to follow in its whirlpool, to find myself in its spiraling darkness. I felt it whisper my name through the echoes of creaking branches, interlacing silk around my vocal chords. You beg of me to call back, to stare deeper, you beg of me to let you in. Burnt amber masses of sprawling fungi creep across you, begging once more for my eyes to drag over you.
I know why you're reading this, I know you want to find it too. The heart, you plead, tell me of its heart, but please, please I can't yet. I can't stomach it. Please, let me at least circle the patterns I found in its skin, its eyes stolen and traded between the magpies, sparrows and miners. It's true it sunk its teeth into me then but that wasn't the start, wasn't the end. Nestled between silver gums, sprawling moss and arching vines, you called to me. You were supposed to be hidden, it's so obvious, no one else could see you. God knows how many cries you've wasted upon deaf ears. Yes, yeah, it was compassion, sympathy, kindness that opened my eyes to you, that let you in, let me fall for you. That makes sense, that deserves empathy. I can't be the only one to have suffered like this because I care. I can't be alone, please, please don't let me be alone. Well if I am I'll plan for it, instructions, a map, a guide but first let me keep falling. Falling, falling a heart darker than any night.
I stood there, immersed in your blind gaze, the echo of your heart beating through the sway of leaves. I found you once before, stood atop a heaping pile of blood-red logs. A single fragment of you caught alone, stranded, forgotten. I had the courage to face you then, even if my heart skips a beat merely thinking of developing those photos I stole of you. What I took was perverted, indecent, blatantly wrong but I know for that I will suffer. I feel lost, stuck, infested with your spores, laid frozen by your sap. It bubbles around me, locking me in your grasp, forcing me to watch what comes next. I can see it now. Yes. Circling your ridge, my eyes lulling back, falling deeper into the plummeting shadows behind my eyelids. Yes, thank you, I can see you now. You in the plural, in the us, in the dazzling streams of light that paint across the forest floor. You are chaos, you are order, you are that without cure. You plead with me to step closer, to tread without care. I see you now and I see you staring back at me, the darkness unfolding, blossoming tendrils lapping at my heels, toying with my every muscle. I know you'll never leave me now, I close my eyes and see you. You, the hungry eyes within the dark, the rotten teeth within bloodied gums. I watch your pupils melt, I'm sure mine do too, a path spilling towards me, towards you. A link never severed. You've waited enough so here, make your way to Fairway Drive, fight through the vertigo, the rising nausea. Between two swirling wattles, far past the trail you'll find it. A black mass of coal-coloured bark, towering through the brush, your eyes twitching to focus. Let it spill throughout you, pooling in your guts, interweaving throughout your intestines, worming its way through sinew, flesh and marrow. You will feel it then, carving its words across your lungs, every breath an echo of what it's left for you, for me, for us.