juniperfrancislee2

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Panic…

…the need to run, my fight being flight, and the only sound is my breathing in staccato as I push my body to a speed it has no choice but to accept, the landscape a peripheral blur, the door an in focus goal…

…my left hand makes contact with the seasoned wood of the door, my right with the iron handle, what should be rhythmic is out of time —push down, push open— I refuse to look behind, instead I exhale and quietly ask for entrance, to which the door replies in kind…

…I slam it shut, surrounded by darkness, I feel towards the left of me, following the stone wall to an entrance, a cavernous darkness I allow to swallow me, where in wait I fear my breathing will give me away…

…the door opens with patience, slowly completing its swing, as it allows golden sunlight to softly touch the shadows, an incandescence that barely illuminates a full length mirror within the room I stand…

…a first step onto the stone floor, a second, the third brings his profile into view, he inhales and exhales with no sign of exertion, and he turns, looking directly at me, a face of five pointed scars, a pentagram of permanence carved into his flesh, a pentacle of protection…

…I forget myself, studying his visage, my mind overflowing with words and images, my body reading his energy, and him allowing me space to make sense of the bombardment…

…my mind finally slowing to the image of a pomegranate and an athame…my right hand beginning to ache and feel wet…I look to see blood slipping through my fingers, dripping upon the stone floor…

…I look back to him and then to the mirror, to which I approach, he slowly following at a safe distance, allowing me to feel secure and not flee like a doe into the thicket…

…I see his reflection, an apparition looming behind me, so I close my eyes and place both hands on the mirror, the blood thickening and slowing into small tear-shaped seeds that collect at my feet…

…I extend my right hand behind me, to which he approaches, his fingertips whisper atop mine, and then the pull forward through time’s fluidity, and when I open my eyes, I’m staring at him through the veil, his hand upon the mirror in confusion…

…what I’ve seen is prophetic, our minds are labyrinthine, with him running through mine, and I through his, and just when we think we’ve solved the mazes in both, a new ending begins, with only one at the finish line…

…we are inevitable, we are fated, we are lore, but only in our almosts…

…until that is, he picks the pomegranate seeds up from the floor, eating them one by one, and with each seed consumed, the veil waivers more and more, until the portal opens and he reaches his hand through…

Juniper Francis Lee. 7/2025. Dreamscapes

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Behold, this dreamer cometh.

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'Starkeeper'

© The Art of Menoevil

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Nico

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Longing for snow ❄️

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(via Pin by Kari Meijers on W i n t e r.W o n d e r l a nd | Pinterest)

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Rachel Mennies, from "April 18, 2017," The Naomi Letters

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just a couple of suggestions from the solstice critter itself

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Beautiful Yule-themed art by Darkspire Design on Etsy

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Winter Solstice | Tijana Lukovic