I used to have a voice of my own
It used to sing often, but song was not its only channel
It laughed, cried, urged, cajoled, conversed, loved, cared, preached, bossed, and obeyed.

But my voice got lost in the shadows of my keep
I don't know how, but I think I know why

I could tell I was losing my voice,
could feel it bleed away
No longer acting with edge, it first became dull
then quieter, then simply gone

Along the way, I would ask to talk just to keep my voice alive
I would beg to listen, just so my voice could find a partner to stay with
I got no voice in return, so soon mine stopped trying too

As it got quieter, I would sit in my car and scream at the steering wheel.
Surely, the steering wheel had to listen.  Alas not.
But it didn't matter, because the sound of my own scream proved to me
that my voice was not gone yet, still alive inside of me
Just the act of screaming was a release for my voice
Each day, my voice got ever quieter
One day I screamed in the car, and I heard nothing.  Gone.  

After all these years, my voice came back at me.
Not from my mouth, an echo from another.
Across a chasm I can not reach nor see.
Still I hear a voice.  Not my voice.  But my voice.
I hear my voice.

It started not as a whisper, but a scream.
My voice was screaming at me.
I could not hear what it said, but I know it was my voice
I still hear it, but it still can't tell me what I need to know

So much unsure, uncertain.
Will my voice stay with me this time?
Will the echos grow closer, and will I cross that chasm?

I do not scream in my car now, because I don't need that to proved to me
that my voice is not gone yet, still alive inside of me
I have other ways now.  Healthier ways.  Richer ways

My voice is coming back.  The echos are still here too.
I need all of it, and it needs me

Again I have a voice of my own, and I have my echo to thank.
Someday, there will be no chasm, and the echo will know too.

The morning took me in her arms,
wrapped me in her misty folds
And waking with her once again I felt not so alone

A feeling I had often, the walls I'd built would hold
the others all with out me, kept them all away
I thought that's what I wanted, to be so all alone

My journey to this keep of mine was long and slow and sure
I did not know where it would lead, but each day
I kept moving closer

Behind my walls, and in my keep, I felt safe all alone.
Soon the echos of the emptiness played upon my mind
I heard each noise unto itself as if it were a din

I toiled at my walls, worked hard to build them strong
Keep out the din, keep out the pain, keep out the sun
Sat in a room of hundreds, and sensed I was alone

Pain finds a way, it always does.
It prays on the alone
And so my keep brought me company unwanted while alone
The pain I worked to keep away
seeped through the mortar
seeped through the stone
seeped through the ceiling
seeped through my walls

And I was alone
with pain

Hemingway taught us that the sun also rises
The lost are redeemed
The heart is resilient

One came that could not see my walls
I was laid bare before her
My soul was open to her touch

One came and I began to realize that pain could be replaced
if only you take down the walls and open the heart

The morning dawns, the day renewed
And waking with her once again I felt not so alone