Too late, I cry, remembering time past, running through shadows
echoes of ten thousand lives criss-crossing, folding, twisting, bending
In their wake, I am forsaken
Amidst the jetsam and flotsam of plans gone awry
(and still somehow I made it to land,
even now I make plans and grand schemes
to sail forth from this benighted isle

Her name whispered by a brief gust of wind,
and somehow it sets the gears in my gerry-rigged mind all winding
spinning, gyring, tilting, grinding
taking my beat-down heart for a whirl

My heart, all patched-up and ragged
all tattered, sewn-together, threads loosed
blood leaking through it all sodden
with the infernal machines in my brain a-twitter
fading flailing falling into sleep
unnamed sorrows, regrets not acknowledged
ravage my heart
this troubled, dreamless sleep

I wake all-of-the-sudden to find that I am weeping
that memory of so-long ago,
of no-hope, no-chance, not even an inkling
and even though life has dragged me kicking-and-screaming
into the great beyond, beyond all belief
and though my quest runs true (to follow that star)
this string of time still pulls at my heart
this dull ache, this roar, the sweet soft rain
my sand castles melt into mud

The fires are out, the memories are ashen
and I tell myself, so long ago, that what-will-be will be
though sorrow rends and tears

I remember the aching darkness of autumn mourning
wishing that it were still a dream,
and in my bed, all covered and still
unmoving
I wished that I were stone
just still and cold, forever
until the world was no more
and still life kept kicking me in the head
and I prostrated myself upon the ground
offering up my soul to be freed from all this sorrow
and I was forsaken
No Gods dwell in that empty blue sky
No spirits live in those murk-filled, shadowy woods

I still remember,
a memory so quiet, so still
and as I grow older, and as I grow more weary, I wonder if I imagined it
my mind becoming worn before its time
dreaming up some fantasy and declaring it history

She held my hand but for a moment
and we ran like children across the street
and I remember that she smiled
and even now my heart aches
for losing something that I never had

Like a prisoner behind those cold, iron bars
Time keeps me jailed
keeps me railing against Fate
against Destiny
and yet what is Destiny but ten thousand random decisions
somehow approximating a straight line?

But I wonder what I would choose?
Though I never really did have a choice.

Like that memory, or that dream, burned into my brain
etched into the inside of my skull
it was all in her hands
and she chose to let me go
and so I was, and will be, forever lost.