Shadowland
ELLA DAVIES
Take my hand…
Let me take you to Shadowland…
Beside her bed in a glass case, captured in daylight
Light continues to dance round golden to protect her from the night
With the birds, in the grass, through the moss, in the trees
Shadows dance across the dusk light.
Melodies; “I hold the kingdom keys!”
Kingdoms, she rules, shadows obey.
Innocence wild,
glass holds her light
To protect against the dark, she keeps the day
Ruling over her playground of Shadowland
Holding the power of the sunlight in the palm of her hand.
Stings, golden in the breeze,
Creating a heaven
So that there’d be someone to tell it to.
Fond of few days of youth,
When all she had was time.
time moves like the shadows across the grass she used to play
time moves like the sun bring dark after the day.
colder air as the sun sleeps down, gallop over to the fence to the house oakwood timbers, brass handle to the door, run up the staircase to the second floor, past the window her reflection sweeping away, with her jar of glass not looking, just going about it like
it was all going to last, bright eyes she just looked straight past, and a freedom all have,
a time that is only our last, running and running and running and running and running
and there’s no time nor breath nor memory to
remember what it was
like to
just be
a girl with light she captured
in a case of glass
and now;
Tick tick, tick tick,
What else can she do
Glass is just glass, and you can see straight through it.
Tick tick, tick tick,
Shadows. Real, too -
Glass was just glass; it’s a truth and she knew it.
Glass performs now, shows her her now,
Her reflection that shows that there is a line
between the chosen, and her
left among the rest,
Sitting among the luckless, looking at the blessed.
“Now, you go and spare no expense.
Go make every effort,”
To mend the imperfect
Ends that tether
(And don’t mind the part of where she pulls it all apart,
Trying to put her home back together).
No light in her land
Bowing to shadows command,
and quietly wishing
for Hell so,
she could have someone to yell it to.
She hides there. Far from the home days
Because she can’t remember what
it feels like to feel okay.
Invisible, cold, light in a jar, gone,
never unseen enough to feel safe.
Calling to Dorothy in dreams
As there is no place like home left
in this part
of her story.
Young Marilyn longs to be Norma Jean again.
Longing for when the home yard was nearby,
wishing for back to when.
Before the glass that held light broke
And cut her open…
Sitting in sun holding her light in her glass case
How is she supposed to know she should not be theirs to take?
Grown up and alone
Shadowland’s been taken
rather than outgrown
And girlhood now far faraway
Memories.
Somewhere she lost the kingdom keys.
a sinking ship amongst the shadows, wish, tap three times
Point it home, jar of light as a guide
Against shadows that they took from her and weaponised
Hold her hand. Let her take you to shadowland
An old friend who once was you has died
but she wants you to know. To take her hand.
We’ve
still
got
time.
Ella Davies is an aspiring writer, composer and lyricist studying a Bachelor of Arts (English) and Bachelor of Music at Macquarie University. Her most recent achievement was writing for Macquarie Musical Society's Innovation Spot 2023, where she presented a series of her songs in a show entitled Invisible.
