Opening

It's fear, isn't it?
        The tremor in my hands
                 The queasiness in my stomach
I know what I'm supposed to see in the mirror
        Yet my heart still skips a beat
                My chest still heaves with every breath

I sit outside your hallowed halls,
        unclean, hands covered with blood and tears
I've come here thinking that somehow
        if I got in and tell the truth
        my spirit will fly again

But my spirit flutters and lies still
        like a baby bird, now dying
        singing a sickly sweet song
                of skies it has never touched

I've come here thinking that somehow
        if I bare my heart to you
        and let your white fire burn it clean
that I can soar to the skies again
that all my sins will turn to cold ash
        and drift to the sullen grey earth

But I've come once before
        and all it's ever left me is 
                empty.

Oh, my words falter
        Misshaped and twisted by my tongue
        Misunderstanding renders my spirit cold, and silent
The rhyme fails me
        the meter stumbles
The thoughts still flow,
        like a river, it will always flow

But too fast, tearing away at its banks
The land crumbles bit by bit, rushing and tumbling
        to the oblivion of the sea

        Outside I will always be
                the same
                untouched
        Inside, slowly there will be nothing

I've sat here once before,
        with hope once
        with dreams of skies
                and seas
        of stars and distant lands

But that is only a memory;
        that was someone else

And all I wish for now is sleep.

But long have I lain awake.

The warm summer nights leave me lying
        in the cold sweat of a nightmare
The birds sing their song at midnight
        and the dogs howl a lament

The thoughts come unbidden to my mind
        but they disappear ere they reach my tongue
Will this be a new beginning?
Or is this the utter end?
Do I write to set my spirit free?
        Or do I write an epitaph for my gravestone?