Romanticism

By Kristin Ranae Prybil

Romanticism is a haunting collection of poems written by an even more haunted soul...

An evocative mind is a forever Haunted.

The Eyes weary.

Word's deceiving-dreary.

How Haunting could one mind be?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kristin Ranae
• Release date: May 22, 2020
• ISBN: 9781087887029

Book preview

Once upon a time,

way up in the hills,

far off in the west wing

of a lonely castle,

lived a girl with a raven for a pet.

There she paced, in the heart of summer,

longing for her knight without armor.

The Irish Sea sent chills up to where she lay,

night after night,

counting her demons one by one in the treacherous shimmer of Moonlight.

Then one evening,

she solemnly wondered in her tower,

if her one wish for true love had been foolishly spent.

All she had wanted was an everlasting fellowship, and above all, Romance.

The world drowning in an endless battle below, she knew it was too late.

The realization of her imminent doom hit her quick,

striking like gunfire outside the castle walls.

Meandering barefoot in the ghostly halls at sundown,

only the raven stood by her lonely side.

Her ribbon of optimism unraveled,

and her spirit resigned gracefully.

Vines of English Ivy strangled a fairy-tale life,

closing off the red door to grim sights.

The girl had been a hopeless romantic to the very end,

but she died

before the white horse could arrive.

The glow of her ghost, evanescent, haunts the castle on the hill,

the Irish Sea still raging below.

Monsters Under the Bed Image

Monsters Under the Bed

in the hours from Dusk to Dawn,

in the realm of these Four Walls,

I contemplate what I allow to consume me,

and everything that I am—cold, eternally cold.

What have I let in?

whistling a spooky tune, that fine cue.

I believe I have gone mad, mad, mad,

maniacal and insane as one can be.

How can this be?

Abandon All Hope–the sign read.

and so I entered the point of no return, gladly.

folly swirls in me, every night crawling on my belly, faking smiles, enchanting them all.

it’s all under control—the voices in my head confirmed it so.

I wondered if I, myself, had ever had control.

even on a lovely night, the stress from this endless white noise, buzzes from every side.

Where is all the Gothic Romance I long for?

I once believed it real.

I dreamt of the glittering gold mirage, longing for its sultry caress.

suspended now, on a timeline up in the Milky Way, glinting in my night sky, so far out of

reach.

I am Lost in these snowy sheets, frozen mornings under my tired feet—grieving just to be.

fingers of bone curl around the iron bed frame, reaching for me, hungry.

skeleton hearts stacked there underneath.

to no avail,

all the Monsters under my bed have commandeered my midnights.

Am I on the verge of Insomnia, or have I already been committed?

once, twice, thrice, two-hundred-and-eighteen times.

a knock, knock, from the Devil himself.

ignoring that,

music tunes in my ear; cedar and lavender fill the air.

constant terror of failure—

the reason it’ll crumble and never work out in this life.

ruthless memories bleed into my days and shift reality.

I can only see in black and white,

a perpetual heartache keeping this shell of a body alive.

I sleep and sing and dream in lyrics,

concocting ludicrous versions of fairy tales, that I could potentially admire,

possibly one day in a new light.

if only there was a switch,

in these restless nights.

there are Seas to travel to, a dark and stormy coming soon.

with one lick, I can Taste its ominous interlude in my icy drink.

too many nights under the spell,

I sold out to the exhaustion in my head.

the music is my diverting friend, except at 2 am when it gets me deep,

deep inside my own head.

thinking, stirring, deceptive defeat.

in the hours from Dusk to Dawn.

the light flickers in an out,

from the other side of the room, ensuring an entity is there.

the flicker, my illuminating friend I’ve always needed.

a light in the dark, a terror rattles in my bones,

Granting and Guiding the beasts away from

the girl who wants out of this maddening decay.

knock, knock. it’s the Devil again.

ignoring that,

in the realm of these Four Walls I shout, begging the lamb inside to get a grip.

but she can’t;