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Writer's pictureJustine Candice

Evanescence

Updated: Jun 3, 2023


"Into the forest I go to lose my mind and free my soul." John Muir. Click the photo to see available prints by the photographer, Cameron Martinez.

ev·a·nesce

/ˌevəˈnes/

verb

1. pass out of sight, memory, or existence.

2. To disappear gradually, vanish, fade away.


I’ve attempted to write this several times, but I kept choking on the words. This was in part due to the contradicting emotions evoked when I recall the memories which inflicted me. I find myself lost in a storm I no longer wish to return to, so I burry those feelings only to realize until I confront them they will reoccur.


Perhaps those feelings will continue to evanesce despite my efforts, but I know one thing for sure: they are merely a ghost of my past. Those feelings no longer are, but rather were.


Another issue I would have finding the words to frame what I feel presently into clarity is that deep down, for a while, I refused to face the reality of what came to be of the beautiful meadow which evolved into a haunting nightmare of a forest.


I imagined that perhaps when the storm subsided that meadow would be just as beautiful; that it would endure like it had endured for so long.


What was left was only darkness and terror. I became familiar with its darkness and twisting paths because I still had a light in me that persisted. That forest only wanted to snuff out my light to leave me cold, bare, helpless, and alone. My light dissipated.


I could feel the grasp the darkness had on me tightening its grip on my body; on my arms; on my throat. I suffocated. “I’m like a small creature swallowed whole by a monster. And the monster feels my tiny little movements inside” The Haunting of Hill House.


Still I returned to the forest time and time again despite the bruises and scars, despite its harshness towards me, because I promised for better or for worse. It promised the same. “I loved you completely, and you loved me the same” The Haunting of Hill House.


Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. I reacted to the hostility and negligence by trying to set fire to your world to pay for what you had done. When you endured, I converted that energy to have the grace of conforming my own darkness into positive energy. I marched through the fires and came out a pheonix while the heart of the forest continued to rot.


There is an energy in me, now and always, which is alluring. It may seem like poison, but rather it is magic.


Magic can be both lightness and darkness. Whatever mine is, whichever the balance or tip of the scales, it is the cause to all the passion, heat, rage, tenderness, and exhilaration that is desirable and irresistible.


I have scattered pieces of myself, yes, but so few get the privilege of experiencing that magic and its effects.


I know the forest recalls that magic, like an insect it was drawn to its light; as we both were once drawn to the moon’s blood. Like a vampire is drawn to the pulsing vein of a tender neck, our magic too turned unconventional.


We realized its powers and it awakened our greatest fears; change. “No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality.” The Haunting of Hill House. Yes, we once had beautiful lovely magic, me and that forest, but it turned stale and dark; still magic it was.


Haunted we will forever be by our magic. If energy can neither be created or destroyed what things will come now that our magic is again free from each other?

As for me, I will grow and prosper. My light will emanate. I am no longer bound to the fears, trauma, and insecurities that the forest once evoked in me. I am no longer afraid, and its power no longer hangs over me, because you are but a ghost, a dream, ancient magic, a petrified forest, “just a carcass in the woods.” -The Haunting of Hill House


…an evanescence of my life.


“The rest is just confetti.”

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