I never saw how truth had mattered
Like backdrops to my life I'd taken
Breathless, leaving dreams in tatters

In youth, my steps were reckless patters
By days ignored my eyes awakened,
Led down lazy steps and ladders

Stumbling blindly, scarred and scattered,
Naivety and fear had shaken
My sense of spirit, mind and matter

So vanity had come to flatter
All egocentric ways I'd taken
Disguised in selfish pangs and clatters

Learning quick from past disasters
To discard my trepidation
I sought instead more lucid matters

To slay the creature growing fatter
And lay to waste this beast I'd wakened,
I'd wield the mirror that once flattered

All frail illusions must be shattered,
Lies learned in youth must be forsaken
Unbear'bly tough and yet, no sadder

All narcissistic nightmares scattered
They bowed to honor's conflagration:
The knowledge that all others matter

The beast is slain, his den in tatters
He faced the truth: his loved ones matter.