Free to retreat,
To find that place inside,
Where worlds are made
To hide the world outside:

A world too bright,
Too real to comprehend;
The dreams preserve
The peace of just-pretend.

But morning waits,
Awaits my tired return;
I brave the light
To one more darkness earn.

Frustration, inside;
There’s no one who sees.
Desperation, inside,
The frantic disease.

Inside, all inside;
Appearing unstirred.
Untroubled, outside;
The tempest unheard.

Do you hear the longing in my words?
Is that why you seem so deterred
When I’ve barely had time to speak?

What is it you see?
What is it you hear?
Won’t you please tell me?
Be sincere, no, severe!

I’ll change, and I’ll hide
That which pushes away;
I’ll keep it inside,
And no longer betray

My desire, the lust
For a soul understanding;
For a deep, certain trust,
For that love undemanding.

But it’s still just pretend,
For my longing, that ache,
Breaks through and offends,
Reveals my composure as fake.

And then they see the desperation in my eyes,
And they wave good-bye without waiting to know

Or hear the wistful words that die
On the lips of an admiring freak.

How did I get here
And can I go back?
The future’s not clear;
My vision’s gone black.

Dare I go on,
Must I keep to this course?
Is the past really gone,
Am I cut off from my source?

No longer a choice,
The path has been taken;
No longer a voice
To say, “I was mistaken.”

Let confidence come,
And then tear self-doubt to shreds.

Let sadness fade,
And let not happiness be prey

Nor hope succumb
To life’s many fickle threads.

Let anger go,
And cast out suspicion too;

Let fear escape,
With despair as well to follow.

Let power flow,
To fight all existence through;

And let courage find shape
In a heart no longer hollow.

Let light invade,
And lift the veil,
Of darkness in the mind;

Let mind evade,
Once more prevail,
No longer be confined.

Let light crusade
And pierce the veil
Of darkness in the mind;

Let light invade,
And without fail,
Give sight back to the blind.

Breaking down the wall
That just won’t go away;
Chip here and there, but though I try,
The wall seems set to stay.

It hides my mind, conceals my soul,
And yet how I long to show
The world who I really am;
Bask in recognition’s glow.

Let in the light,
Let people see,
Let someone know me true;
The wall blocks out,
The wall obscures,
Lets only figments through.

And yet here I am, behind the screen,
Wait for someone to see in,
Past the wall my self’s put up to keep
My heart’s hope from growing thin.

A paradox, it seems, but while
There’s no one able to know
My mind complete, still there’s a chance
To be found when out I go.

And thus the wall protects, and guards my soul,
Somehow keeps alive the flame,
For though there may be failure and defeat,
There’s always the wall to blame.

Sure, there are a lot of uncertainties, but I’ll try to just take them as they come.

And above all, I’ll do my best to remain – at the center of all the madness, and no matter what happens – the calm at the eye of the storm.

What I should be is asleep, but it seems my fears are getting the better of me, and perhaps what I need most right now is to express those fears, to use someone – or something – as a sounding board, to hear the echoes of my thoughts in the hopes that maybe I’ll calm down a bit and feel less anxious about… well, about everything, really.

Because I, as I said, am scared. You wouldn’t necessarily know it by looking at me; it’s a fairly quiet version of the emotion, somehow, not exactly the kind that has you visibly gripping the edges of your seat while watching a scary movie. It’s more pervasive, subtle, almost subconscious but palpable nonetheless. It’s the kind of feeling that invades the mind and makes itself at home, entwining itself with your thoughts and becoming a part of your mental process – assuming you let it stick around long enough to get a proper hold. I’d rather it didn’t, but how to make it let go? And how long has it already been there without me knowing?

That’s part of the problem: I’m not sure I recognised my fears until recently, or at the very least not enough to know them as such. But fears they are. And I’m scared.

I’m scared of not finishing the things I start, and scared of not getting ahead. I’m scared of staying always in one place, and I’m scared of not staying in one place, afraid that in thinking I’m moving forward, I’m actually just changing the scenery but not the script. I’m scared of repeating past mistakes, albeit in different surroundings and with different actors, and I’m scared of remaining stuck in old patterns, of not changing myself and my life for the better.

I’m scared too that I somehow left the better path behind me, took the wrong fork in the road – and I’m really scared, one might even say petrified, that “the better path” might be on some other road entirely. I’m scared that the best choices I could make are ones I don’t even see, either because I can’t imagine them as actual possibilities or because the circumstances of my life until this point have steadily erased any trail I might now find myself wanting to explore.

And what if it’s just my fears keeping me from exploring those trails, however faint they might be? Am I really going on my own unique journey or am I just following along where countless others have already tread out of some vague, inescapable desire to conform? For all my independence, for all my quirks and self-avowed individuality, am I still somehow afraid to step too far away from the expected, from the norm? Am I afraid to go too far afield in case what I find out there doesn’t measure up, in case I don’t measure up? If that’s true, I’m scared that I might not realise it until it’s too late, until a combination of factors – like age, prior choices, and the like – have conspired to completely eliminate any means I might have had of doing something about it, of changing direction.

Come to think of it, do I even know for certain what direction I’m going in now? Does anyone? I’ve always had many goals and many dreams, but sometimes – especially lately – that seems less like an asset and more like a liability, particularly when the pursuit of one feels like the abandonment of another. With a great big mental sigh, I suppose I have to admit that that’s likely an unavoidable part of life for everyone, that to “be something,” you have to actually make a choice and thereby give up on being something else… but what if I can’t decide? I’m scared of my uncertainty, scared that my inability to confidently pinpoint my passions, or at least a narrow range thereof, might be preventing me from focusing enough to actually accomplish something worthwhile with my life.

I guess, when it comes down to it, my biggest fear is failing to successfully shape the me of today into the me of tomorrow, all as a consequence of not fully knowing what I want tomorrow to look like – or how to get there even if I did. Should I just keep to the familiar, well-worn path, stay on the course that my life has already established? Or do I go off and cut a new track and hope to find my bearings along the way?

I’m afraid I don’t know the answer to that yet, but I’ll let you know once I figure it out.

The soul gives in,
The mind gives up,
The heart begins to slow.

But Death is not
The culprit, no,
It’s hope that’s burned away

And with its loss
The self endures
The same kind of decay.

The light will fade,
The warmth will cease;
One difference, though, it’s true,

That with the glint
Of future love
The flame might burn anew.

Perhaps the spark
Is always there,
Still ready to ignite

The soul with fire
Of hope once more,
To burn away the night.