Enter The Realm of The Fae
Shannon Coldrey
O, the things you must have seen with your hidden eyes and inside ears, the memories lost in time like tears in rain. Hearts and thoughts they fade, hearts and thoughts fade away.
O, the things you must have seen with your hidden eyes and inside ears, the memories lost in time like tears in rain. Hearts and thoughts they fade, hearts and thoughts fade away.
Enter the realm of the fae, it is darker than you expect. There is a doorway only
a select few are able to access. I always wanted to be one of them, but I don’t
think I ever will. Forest creatures forest elves folk of the faraway trees they
could fit in your cradled hands, they possess eyes of black and wings
translucent. They observe you curiously, a girl lost. Carnation-pink dress
matches warm youthful cheeks. Where is she meant to be? Where is she
meant to be? She doesn’t belong here. Like a moth to the flame, burned by
the fire the Venus portal opens on Sunday. I never told you but an owl came to
visit me once. Not in a dream but in real life, nestled in my family’s fig tree on a
warm summer’s night. Aggressive superficial backyard light shining on the soft
feathered tawny frogmouth. It is the ugliest coolest owl I have ever seen. I think
it is the only owl I have ever seen. He was never really an owl though, he was
never really an owl, with weak talon-less feet he is a poser he is a liar you are
a nocturnal nightjar you were never really an owl. Like the others with your
brown eyes, you deceived me. You deceived me yet still I wait for the hoot
hoot hoot that never comes. Hoot, hoot, hoot. Who,
who, who are you to tell me what
to do? Who are you? Who are you?
A purple caterpillar lives inside my brain, he sits on a bright red toadstool, he is chain smoking from a pipe.
Your name is not Alice, he says. I don’t know who you are, he says, ‘and I
cannot help you’. He stabs himself in the eye with his pipe. He collapses
and dies. Laying there he decays, he decays in my head, a rotting corpse
rotting alongside the remaining brain matter he resided in. Blowflies buzz
around an empty cranium, they seek more death. Perhaps they wait for
mine. Pendulum clock Cogsworth ticks away in the corner of the bedroom,
anxiously counting the seconds: no time to say hello goodbye I’m late, I’m
late, I’m late! I am a scatterbrain with no memory, and lately it’s been difficult
for me to focus, and I don’t know why, and I don’t know how to fix it. She is a
siren stretching her mouth to form a scream but I don’t make a sound. Am I a
siren? To be a siren one must be beautiful, and to claim I am a siren means to
claim I am beautiful. And is it vain to claim I am beautiful by claiming I am a
siren? She slaps herself in the face, you need to shut up most of the time,
sirens were never beautiful they were grotesque half-bird half-human sea
monsters, anomalies abandoned by the sailors they simply wanted to sing to.
I am the distraught maiden Lorelei, luring Rhine River fishermen to their demise.
A pretty young girl lies down on a bed of grass in a forest. Distorted wooden
veined faces scowl down at her, they surround her like high school bullies. I
am huddled into myself. No, this is untrue, I was not afraid. Or I pretended
not to be, anyway. Give me songs to sing and emerald dreams to dream, I will
always come back to you. Jim Morrison smirks up at the stars from his Parisian
grave. Aurora, where are you, where are you, Aurora? Touch the spindle,
touch it I say, I walked with you once upon a dream. What have I become?
The trees are my friends, I made tea from their leaves on a kindergarten
excursion. Hugging centuries-old ancient torsos with chubby five-year-old
arms we are tethered by generations yet we are here together in the present
moment. O, the things you must have seen with your hidden eyes and inside
ears, the memories lost in time like tears in rain. Hearts and thoughts they
fade, hearts and thoughts fade away. Stealing their bark and sticks,
I made houses for the fairies in my childhood backyard, though I think the
fae have had it out for me since the day my parents ripped up their home’s
dirt for an outdoor spa. Perhaps Dartagnian’s buried canine bones have
been absorbing their underground magic for a decade, the magic I
never properly dug up as a kid, the magic I’m always searching for but
never able to find. Sometimes I look up at the moon and wonder if I’ve
found it there. Sometimes I wonder if I’ve found it in the people I meet.
The trees are my friends: motherly longing swirls around inside my gut
when a weeping willow and I cross paths. Weeping weeping weeping I am
a willow I am a willow I am a woman. In another life, I am a wife yearning for
the life I live now. Alluring pregnant belly waddling in flowy summer dresses no,
no, no, I have always been the chubby five-year-old, never the mother: Jennifer
Connelly in the labyrinth meeting the little English worm. Come inside,
meet the missus. Leather-clad Bowie, long hair, dangerous demeanour,
fear me love me do as I say and I will be your slave he lured you into the
pattern of falling for men incapable of loving you. You will betray yourself
many times, the girl inside you will cry many times. Never Raoul and
always the Phantom: O, the voice, the charm, the lustful passion, the
unsettlingly psychotic intensity. Gothic charm via black capes and French
swords and romantic candlelight. Since 2018 Heathcliff has been scaring
you enticing you, be with me always take any form drive me mad only do
not leave me in this abyss where I cannot find you, his words are forever
etched into my mind. It’s me, Cathy, I’ve come home. Don’t let yourself be
hurt this time, remember what happened to Laura Palmer. Cupid says no,
not yet, wait. Wait. Maybe I should go outside and hug my friends more.
Siri play Souvlaki Space Station by Slowdive. I am the girl in every portrait
I see, they are all varying versions of me. A hundred years and still I’ll dream
for you and a hundred years still I’ll dream for you. A hundred years still
I’ll dream for you. Rule of Three: omne trium perfectum I recite spells
under a full moon don’t forget to charge your crystals, too. Have
the trees put a spell on me? I put a spell on you. Woodland
satyrs stick their mythical heads out from dark towering
oak trees, furry legs hypnotic eyes, they seek to protect
the innocent girl with the pigtails and pink dress. A
forest nymph comes to sit beside me, she takes the black
orchid flower crown from her head and places it on
my fluffy childish hair. Talk to your plants, they need to
hear a friendly voice. If a big bad wolf appears, don't let him
take you, the forest nymph warns. He’s trying to find a girl in red
sometimes he gets his reds and pinks messed up— he’s getting old, the poor thing.
You could tell me anything and I’d believe you, I get my gullibility from my
mother, I used to chastise her for it and now I’m the one being chastised for it.
If you look up at the night sky there are black pegasuses flying overhead, they
are heading to Italy for the heat. Pazzo spacciato pazzo spacciato pazzo
spacciato l’amore che move il sol e l’altre stelle. The trees are telling you
to look up because you rarely do, look up at the stars the world is the
world is right here, hear it calling, calling, calling. I’d like to roam around
in your mind someday. Stop looking down and look up, for Aphrodite’s sake.
Peter Peter Peter, I hate Peter, Peter you loser, he was crying on his birthday
I miss my brother. You’re lost little girl, tell me: who are you? Who
are you? Who who
who? Hoot, hoot, hoot. You’re not that pretty, and
you’re not that bright. Nicole Kidman we both have the same Scorpio
rising stare and curly hair. Taurus sun Virgo moon I am in my head too
much, I wonder if I have always been this way, even as a child. Crying
for my mum at primary school I used to pluck my eyelashes out. My name
means ‘wise river’ in Gaelic, though admittedly I am not so much a
possessor of wisdom. I hate stumbling upon boys who
have the same name as me. I shouldn’t get into the
habit of social smoking I think about it every day. I
wonder how much money I have spent using Afterpay.
Too often I claim Destiny and Fate to be the mother and
father of all outcomes, yet they are parents absent in my life.
Try not to think about it, you’re only making it worse. Only in my
Mind, only ever in my mind. Send me an angel please with round
moonstone eyes and wings of sapphire. One day I’ll fly away but in
the meantime I will stay cradled on the grass, around the trees in the
realm of the fae. Toi, tu auras des étoiles comme personne n'en a…
O, to be the special rose he sees in the garden. Listen to the fox.
Dirty grubby hands hold dandelions, what happened to the daisies
in my front yard? I find love in the songs women write please write
about me - no I’ll write about you, it’ll only ever be this way, she is
never the muse, this is your tragedy. Green light at the
end of the dock at least there is always dreaming. Maybe when
my human self sinks away down into the ground maybe I will be
reincarnated as a white swan. Maybe I will peacefully float on
an iridescent lake for twenty years, and maybe a prince will fall
in love with me. I will have a constellation of my own, too, as
Orpheus too became a swan after death. Wild flowers in earthen
soil they grow around my teeny-weeny body, the growing forest
grass grows taller yet I remain the same, maybe my face has
changed a bit but nevertheless I am the same identical woman.
The nymphs and satyrs have disappeared into the night they are
ghosts, I am alone. The trees observe me from their heights I am
alone, in the night-time woods I am alone but the trees are not bullies,
they never were. The trees are my friends in the realm of the fae.
Small and innocent she lays on wild terrain in the realm of the fae. You
will care more about people than they will care for you, the creatures warn,
please don’t take it, don't take it personally, this is your tragedy. O, if I could give
you the ability to see yourself through our little elvish eyes! She is beautiful
and strange like us like Mother she is alive yes, all sadness in your human
world comes from growing up, yes! So, stay here for just a while.
For just a while until your soul crawls back down into the
rabbit hole into the hundred-acre woods where the lion
and the witch are waiting. Maybe you’ll see the
tawny frogmouth again.
Don’t count on it.