A Twisting of Time and Multiple Lives

Lifetimes Between Us
Six hundred years is not enough
But twenty-six seconds is all too much.
You took my hand with a smile
Yet I'm thinking all the while
Had we met ten days past, maybe,
I could have been you, you could have been me.
Or had we met three days prior
I'd still be preaching to the choir.
But here are we in this time
With you waiting for a sign
That in this life a chance I'd give
For all five lives we might have lived
In which I gave you not a thing
And the world was on another's string.
Maybe twelve live or maybe ten, ago
We could have been in love; we'll never know.
Yet somehow I feel deep in my heart
That eight lifetimes ago we grew less apart
But by a lifetime you might be late
For time's memory is as a clean slate.
Now I am just me and you are just you.
With no past between us, we start together anew.

-Leiland Arnholt

Fire So Lovely Yet So Damaging

Burn
I see the people in the stairwell
Handing out their vacant stares.
They don't know what they're feeling
And the world don't really care.
It'd just be so damn easy
To watch all of the burn
As the unfortunate result
Of a lesson never learned.

-Leiland Arnholt

Complexities of Time and Love

Out of Love a Hundred Years
It could have been you,
It may have been me
That tried much too hard
Or perhaps not at all.
But either way, here we stand
I too young and you too average
In ways that we never should
Such ideas have entertained
Because I was sixteen
And you said hello when I said goodbye.
Though we were but strangers
I fell out of love
A hundred years before we met.

~Leiland Arnholt

When Reality Is Storming Down

Imagination's Tree

As all man’s tears and all the world’s rain

Fall down in thunderous despair

‘Tis time to turn and run away

To hide behind Imagination’s tree.

Climb high into its branches

To escape the raging waters

In some feeble, desperate hope

To reclaim your sacred dreams.

Though heavens may flash

And winds shriek and cry

Cling tight to the tree of the things

Of which all dreams are made.

In its sturdy branches will you find

Shelter from the reality that claws

At the things that have made you

So have no fear and close your eyes.

Only if you let it will Imagination’s tree

Give way to the mundane all around

So wild and free let your mind run,

Only building a fortress against the world.

~Leiland Arnholt

Medically-Induced Hallucinations

Hospital Days

White walls, white light

Everything is plain

All these needles in my arm

Yet I feel no pain.

My eyes are rolling

My head is lolling.

They just gave me medicine

This is the effect.

Now everything’s a blur

Like a fogged up glass

And can’t get a glimpse

Of what’s rushing past.

So hard to see

Anything and everything.

Eyes are closing, I’m so tired.

But I can’t sleep. I know; I’ve tried.

I try to speak

But I can’t form the words

I want to cry out

Because the pain hurts.

Reaching blindly, numbly seeing

Everything and nothing.

Darkness in my vision

Turns into delusion

Elephants dancing out of sight

People walking, disappearing

Into flashes of white light

And in colors reappearing.

Voices ringing in my head,

Feeling trapped within my bed.

Hands reaching from the wall

Coming for me after all!

~Leiland Arnholt

Playing on the Darker Side of Life

Sin and Death

Darkness now creeps from white-washed hands,

Black Ink to blemish pale skin.

Watch it crawl and creep with life

As to all it touches doth come strife.

The darkness reaches deep within,

Grabbing hold of all life-giving,

And wrenches -pulls- without restraint

As we cry aloud in pain.

We writhe and moan as the accurséd

Black Ink now invades our systems,

Wreaking havoc as it goes.

We cry yet louder as it burrows.

Feel it move into the heart

And rip the fragile flesh apart.

Bloodcurdling scream now fills the air

As blood pours from that wound there.

As we cry, we see him smile

Like Cheshire cat as all the while

The Master of Darkness merely stalks

The people he hath yet to mark.

Those be they that ever live,

Blind to danger and in bliss,

Ignoring the Darkness day by day

As if to keep the Master away.

~Leiland Arnholt