My Prison

Lying in silence, I wait.
Whispering half-truths, unspoken stories
Swirl in my head.
All is dead.
The books have been read.
And all that could have been said
Has fled.

Face buried in echoing pain,
I rise to agony,
A ride of my own routine,
A self-provided prison.

Now
I hear the laughter of children.
I gaze longingly through bars,
Loosely gripping those iron barriers.
They are running,
Running nowhere,
Without guidance, without direction,
Without care.

My heart aches as she giggles,
The youngest, hardly perceiving the grass between her toes,
The sunlight on her skin.
She is smiling.
Now, the children,
Like a pack of wolves on the hunt,
Strategize their next mission
And fly far away.

Oh, how I long for those days!
Ignorance abound,
Sweet, pure gaiety all around.
They see a rock
It becomes their toy,
something to throw,
nothing to know.

I see a rock,
And the elders frown
When I hold it at that certain angle
And exclaim its beauty, its smooth features,
Rounded by the sands of time.

For the wicked age of thought and reason
Has snatched my ability to love.

For all is dark, in this shadowed prison,
As I turn, shuffling to the center of my empty heart.