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.