This Shadow of the Heart

Life is a canvas laid bare for all to see

Man is a mirror imprinted with lock and key

Dichotomous gates lead to dormant ways

Where every path was split in half

We wander 'til we fade

Time confounds and mystifies

Awareness cuts like a blade

The duplicitous curse of the gifts we share

Soon lost on wasted days

Let senses draw blood

Drown in their flood

A maelstrom of sweat and cold regret

Life's paint seeps from our veins

Through the portals that we left

Our shades will follow through

Embrace the struggle

Learn to grow with your pain

Hope lies in the solace of a dying dream

Beasts trapped in a corner fight fiercest of all

Does the light not shine the brightest in the depth of night?

Once our souls moved softly

And tiptoed through the world

The Atlas weight a gentle ache

But this could not be us

A slave to wretched nature

A rag doll to our hearts

To relish burden like a fool while shadows tear at our mind

We have shaped our sorrow and became the forge

Infernos that consumed us once have wrought a tempered flame

But bitterness does suffocate and stone breaks all the same

Our sculptor's soul, though marble-made

Eclipsed by the shadow of the heart

Beasts trapped in a corner fight the fiercest of all

Does the light not shine the brightest in the depth of night?