Experience

The north wind blew me here,

A trickster,

Leaving me stranded in the tempest of my mind.

Whispered breezily of "experience." 

An elder apparition in a red shawl once warned me away from her home,

Now she guards the the bridge so I cannot leave.

Her hair falls in long braids,

And her face is marked with wisdom. 

"Experience." She seems to say with her gaze.

The tempest rages on.

I have made the wolves my friends,

But they are not tame.

Sometimes I feel as savage.

Sometimes I feel nothing at all. 

Sometimes I feel the harsh hand of experience. 

I watch the village burn away in my mind.

I close my hands around the burning embers.

The bridge has sunk.

The woman in red becomes the red earth,

And I become the north wind,

Rushing and wisping away,

Until I realize.

I am the tempest.

And I can't escape experience.