As the snowy days grow colder,
I'm in the trenches, like a soldier:
a war against my own heart.
.
Shrapnel, bullets, drying blood
surround me in the mud
since we've been apart.
.
My enemy knows no reason,
cares not for negotiation;
moving on for it is treason;
accepts no explanation.
.
And I keep fighting through the pain,
survival instincts wax and wane,
But in my chest I keep a hope.
.
Weak and battered, yet alight,
a single candle in the night -
the only thing that helps me cope.
.
I let the embers of it seethe,
grip it tight and grit my teeth,
like a drowning man to a rope.
.
It whispers softly: "he'll return",
that flame doesn't cease to burn,
its heat is my heliotrope.
.