John Biscello

   It is a magic time, it is a deadly time.

   We are fresh and newly forming, we excel in discoveries, delight in newness.

   Our souls are malleable, there is fluidity and grace oozing from us, and with ease and naturalness.

   And yet the horrors. That is, the terrors. Elements that drive our souls out of our bodies, noises, explosions, and other psyche-shattering x-factors.

   These elements, which sometimes come from certain conditions and circumstances, from the tangled and barbed roots of family (which can also become wormholes), our souls recoil and we begin to develop the complex system of neuroses that will stunt, paralyze, and malign us. Aberrations that make us gag, defects that derail spontaneity. When we go from ourselves, where do we go?

   At the bottom of us-made wells, we send our screams, at the bottom of these wells a concert of screams, that no one hears, that no one ever heard.

   The bottom of the well becomes glutted with unheard screams.

   They are the flying scissors that cut through bits of soul.

   They cut, they fly, they slash, and yet they are necessary in reminding us that we must let ourselves be heard, we must not bury ourselves in malignant silence, soul-killing silence (there is good silence, there is golden silence) and how many voices met premature deaths at the bottom of childhood’s well?

   We dug and we dug into the earth, out of necessity, we carved out the hole in which we created the well (if we were going to bury our screams then we would add water, a life-giver to counter-balance the death-dealing), we carved and carved our own wells, because we needed hiding places, because we were scared and had become mutes, but inside we were far from mutes, we had many many visions raging and splintering and bright, a cathedral of voices, and so the well became a hiding-place and a treasury, a vault of cries we had yet to make, voices we had yet to speak.

   How many children were murdered and thrown into wells?

   How many ghosts have emerged and continue to emerge from wells?

   If we tune in to the voices of these ghosts, is it not our responsibility to share their stories, to sing the unsung, and to give voice to the voiceless?

   At the bottom of childhood’s well, there is much to be found, much to be heard.

   All are calling out for spirit, all are calling out for soul-play, unimpeded by fear-built blocks.