Rose bushes creep onto my path
and tend to keep me from my way.
The forest preys on my dismay
and keeps me in its gentle wrath —
lost in the Wilderness today.
The thorns envelop as a cage
quiets the canary’s song.
The passing of the days prolong
my dismal stay until old age
must take me listlessly along.
An eagle lands upon my neck
and steals the air out from my lungs
and seizes the words from my tongues,
leaving me but a useless wreck
though my body is strong and still so young.
But through the blood soaking my gaze,
I spy some manner of escape;
yet my comrades stare with mouths agape.
The woods have struck them with malaise
by the promise of some future dreamscape.
The woods grow ever dark and steep,
and the roses grow, a handsome weed,
with thorns that strike me till I bleed.
Until I too am lulled to passive sleep —
so it has, the Wilderness, decreed.
Behind the Writing
“There’s a concept that I’m fascinated with as an amateur history and political junkie, the wilderness, a state of political or social exile, when an opposition party has lost all influence. In our current political state, it’s not just that the Democratic party has lost influence… our entire society seems completely incapacitated by the struggles of the current moment: a rise in authoritarianism, nationalism, fascism, and hate.
Joshua Nicholson
What does it mean for an entire society to be lost in the wilderness, and can it find its way out?”
Writer To Writer Literary Journal 