Exhumation

As I read the pages

of a forgotten journal
each line becomes
an ax
     that grows
          and chops
the frozen world away from tight around me.

My thoughts had stayed
dormant for so long

in the ice of the past

Now one hand up over the other

rising to my wet feet
the numbing slush reluctantly lets go.
 
Thoughts and dreams
and monsters and
the long dead loved ones
all climb back out

from the forgotten abyss
 
No longer banished to that place beyond
and out of reach.
I stand there straining

and peering into that deep chasm.

There, a single wiggling light
at the bottom far below

drawn to that reflection and a me

that was then.

We lock eyes

and we're off.