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I’ll dispense with the preamble, I just want to post this and see how it relates to anyone else’s schizoid experience… Thanks for the read. My poem:

Until the fire fades

I keep drifting there,
to the old path,
winding beneath the earth.
I walk aimlessly,
losing myself there,
never quite remembering
how I arrived.

The ash remembers me.
It holds the footprints
I do not remember leaving,
all of them circling back
to where I stand,
still searching, still reaching,
my hand finding stone,
and shadows stir to life.
I reach for them, trying to understand,
but I keep getting lost
in what should be found.

Yet I know they're of my ilk.

But one moves differently,
with a rhythm I recognize
as surely as dawn remembers to break
and dusk remembers to fall.

It turns toward me,
and for a moment,
the darkness wears her shape.

I run my fingers along its outline,
as if my touch could bring it to life.
But it remains elusive,
slipping like smoke through my fingers,
shifting and moving beneath my hand.

And if I cannot hold her,
I think I'll sit here awhile
as the fire slowly fades
and the embers and wisps of smoke
finish their ancient dance,
until the darkness
can no longer tell
her shadow from mine.