How on earth did I arrive here
In this dark and dismal place,
When it all began with love, but
Of that love there’s not a trace,
When you first began to spell me
I was helpless in your clutch,
Like an oak, you tried to fell me,
One who didn’t matter much.

You would praise me up and raise me
When it suited you to play
With my juvenile emotions
You could have had me any day,
Though you never looked much further
Than the day that you would tire
Of your plaything, or the way things
Would consume me in your fire.

I was not more than a bangle or
A bracelet for your wrist,
You would get me so entangled that
I never could resist,
Then you tossed me in your tempests
Left me battling your storms,
Till you had me question love and
What it was, in all its forms.

Then you plunged me into darkness
Black as pitch, without a light,
And I wondered at this starkness
When you failed to say goodnight,
I have stumbled on your pathway
In my folly, now it seems,
But have missed the open gateway
In my search for love and dreams.

David Lewis Paget