fruiting bodies (poem REMAKE)

A remake of an old poem of mine

Fruiting Bodies

The train station was left abandoned.

Unkempt.

You purposefully left us to sprout in the dark,

The damp and musty environment serves in your favor.

After all, it’s the perfect conditions for us.

The dark is comforting, as we flourish and thrive in the environment,

Our fungal network spreading to the far reaches

Underneath the soil.

Our mycelium creeps, spilling out from the bottom of the stems,

All connected, all agreeing, that the dark is best for us.

The dark is good. Or so we thought.

The thing about the dark is that you can’t see everything clearly.

Everything warps and looks different, shifting and molding to what we try to fill in.

If there was light, even just a little bit, we would’ve seen the warning signs

Of the oncoming train.

But if it was light, we would shrivel up.

Our mycelium would burn,

And you’d become disconnected from us.

So you kept us in the dark.

The mycelium grows.

It grows, and grows, and has no intention of stopping.

Our spores launch into the air

As if nothing could hurt us.

The headlights from your train of deception came too fast.

We couldn’t react fast enough.

The heavy metal of truth slams into us at breakneck speeds.

Everyone gets horrendously squished, trampled, & crushed.

It doesn’t stop. It just keeps going.

The line of your lies just keeps going.

You destroyed an entire colony and for what?

Did you ever care ? Even a little bit?

Or is that just the reality of these dark places?

No matter how comforting the dark seems,

It’s ripped away eventually, in one way or another.

We’re disconnected from everything

And are left desperately clinging onto

What life we have left.

All you saw were mushrooms,

And all we saw was the darkness you grew us in,

The shadow of what you once were still lingering.

I wish it didn’t. I wish I could just forget.

Even though it’s good that we finally saw past your deceiving image,

I almost wish we were still in the dark.

People say the dark is scary,

But I find the light much scarier.

Because in the dark, at least you can hide.

But there’s no hiding in a spotlight on top of a pedestal.

Eventually you will fall,

And the mushrooms of your lies will sprout from your body.

And then you’ll know what it feels like to be left in the dark.