Six years gone by; been awhile. A group dispersed across the globe; lost a little. A door left open; desolate in the desert. No path direct ahead in which to bear my barren steps. A heart left gazing towards the open sea. I feel as though the hour glass of my soul lies in detainment. Anxiously awaiting my hand to turn its hyperbolic cage; resuscitating it from its stagnant state.

Facing in detached reverence the reflection of my dreams and current reality, I stand here fighting every urge to flee. I’ve cheated time and it has finally caught up to me—now tearing at my eyes to claim all that I stole so long ago. Forcing me to see the wasteful wake I have thus forged, and the despondency of my life’s dereliction. Surveying the solemn cells of my past memories knits together a discordant tapestry of tragedy.

The hope I’ve long longed for listlessly lies in between the cracks that run through this fractured form.

I was never meant to stay here.
I’m afraid to move forward into the unknown.
I’ve sat still in this stagnant theatre of my soul. Each burgeoning breath growing wearier as I struggle to keep open my weighty eyes to the growing dim that shrouds my heart.

I just want to know that in the end, when the gauntlet was thrown down, I reached out to take hold. That when my lip split open on the first punch thrown, I sucked it in and put my hands back up. That when the ground greeted my broken cheek as a pillow, my eyes still splayed wide. That I gritted my loosening teeth and sweetly sucked in one more nasally breath, to push myself up to my full height for one last go. That I let loose a final roar from the aphotic abyss within—shaking the foundations of my own soul before the curtain of the melancholy flood comes forth to claim these lifeless eyes.

The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.

Joseph Campbell

I’ve watched the stars pass overhead through four different seasons now. It seems as though just last night I spied Orion’s silver bow gleaming far above me in this knowing night sky. His eye twinkling as though winking at me to tell me that his arrow will light the way ahead. Four years and still I have not found where it lays. And as night draws near the more dim the dark I descend into.

Have I wandered off the path again?
Have I lost the great light within?
Who shines down on me now?

I fear the night’s bright lights have been obscured by the convalescing clouds of my mind. Everything was so clear when arriving here. The path was straight and laid bare; well lit and full of promise. Now I’m surrounded by winding wilderness. Where this forest ends I have no clue: no guide above to see me through.

The brambles bristle across my skin; breaking through to brandish blood, as I slowly forward bore. My skin alights with fire as searing sores turn to scars. Layering on top of each other with each new daunting day. I know not what I toil towards, but fear to stop to never start again.

What was the reason why I started this journey?
I seem to have forgotten.
Who was I when I started down this path?
I seem to have forgotten.

But then I see, coming through this midnight mist, the formidable form of my partner in this craft. We dance and skip and move through a moment that withers not away. And standing there in quiescent time I see the light of that arrow shot, glinting in the eyes of my partner. Thus am I transported out of this trepidation and returned home: back to the craft I know and love.

For whenever I lose myself amidst the amorphous rabble that raucously roars through this laborious life, I have but only to look in my fellow artist’s eyes and the path I lost is once again exposed before me. I will always fail to tread this path alone; for the artist’s soul craves collaboration.