In an empty room

In an empty house

In the empty head

That I call my home

With a soul too full

To fill A fire

Warms too hot

In touching I’ll burn my hands upon it

I back away

But the room, it is icy,

A cool chill on my thoughts

Icicles hang

Clear and frozen droplets of thought

In suspended animation

Crystal and diamond mirrors

Unmarred prisms

That I can’t touch

Fire and Ice

Twin banes of my soul

If ever the ‘tween shall meet, a flood

And I shall drown, carried away by the frothy tide

Though in keeping this balance

A stagnation

Caught between burning and freezing, I learn

Nothing as days slip past this glassine window

A red dawn to a purple night

With blackness and sunlight between

Each turning of the sun as the one before

Every fear in my heart, just a point of light

In that inky sky

I look from that window

As the stars fade to darkness

And I beg for the changing

That I most fear

That I may survive it

Though too scared to cause it

To shatter this window

And drink through the fine cracks

The free air again

So long I’ve been trapped here

Forgotten the way out

Forgotten the outside

Forgotten the spring

The buds on the tree-branch

The song that the birds sing

The light through the rainbow

That spring rains may bring

I long for that light now

In this glowy darkness

A place that I could leave

If I recalled how

But the dark it’s not lasting

And the daylight will shine soon

To slice through the shadows;

The things I most fear

Yet here in pre-dawn

The just-bluish blackness

It’s hard to believe that,

That daylight will come

I wish for your hand now

To shatter this darkness

Seems when I most need you

You’re not to be found

I must make a choice now

To go or to stay lost

As my boot hits the fire

I start to pray

I wish you were here now

As the room fills with steam now

The icicles melting

The sound of the drips

They shatter the silence

And boom through the cavern

As the room fills with water

I’ll learn to swim now

But change is worth drowning

If I find I cannot

I’ll face the darkness

The deepening water

The fire that freezes

The heat and the smoke

I’d tell you I fear not

But that’d make me a liar

I’m scared for myself now

And all that I know

But still I’ll move foreward

And hope for the dawning

The unseen horizon

Of all that’s to come

Nothing is sure now

With the wind and the water

The glass and the darkness

But still I can hope

A test of my own strength

My muscles burning

And quickly exhausted

As I struggle to float

But that hope I will cling to

The rope when I tire

To keep me grounded

And drown out the fear

A nightlight

That is all

To ward away monsters

The things that will jump out

From under the bed

Now the dawn, it is breaking

That swift, silent morning

And shows me I still live

Through that hellish night

I rise to my feet now

That water receeded

A stairway has opened

From this hellish room

I step through the door way

Down one of the old steps

Of moldy green planking

To me it is gold

There’s sun at the bottom

I pause to look back up

Then step through the doorway

And into the light