Exiled Among the Crowd

Adrift, whipped on by fear, fashioning a mask

Image of the doppelganger of defiant daydreams,

Frantic trembling, lest it should tear at the seams.

*

Hollow shells, growing ever more hollow;

It is easy to lose track of one’s soul;

In the suffocating darkness, the lonely vastness,

Where that which is scattered may not be made whole.

*

Some suffer in silence, some seek a prideful fall;

Ah, priceless is a knowing heart, a warm lamp amidst the somber pall.

*

A soft prison insidious cruel;

When wounds are forgotten, the heart abandons the battle.

The flesh unconscious indulged, the spirit, numb, slowly starves on watery gruel.   

*

The day done and the night still, the mind half-lucid wanders,

Losing the struggle to sleep, beginning to fret;

For misdeeds and deeds undone equal carry a life-sentence of regret.

*

Was it wise to part

If, when asked “why?” we armour ourselves with anger?

Alas, to spare us tears we impose an exile on our hearts,

And make of ourselves a stranger.