I‘ve been a rebel all my life,
fighting against established formality.
Dreaming about adventure and other lands,
making plans inside my mind.

Trying to break free to be myself
searching to find me amidst the ruins of childhood.
Looking for that magic knife
to cut the tether that holds me.

Your grip no longer holds the person inside
I’ve cut the chain and broken the link that held me.
You’re but a memory now I hold to
As I have become my own.

Thoughts tempered with the fires of life,
dreams of youth vanquished, replaced by reality.
Happily ever after endings, an illusion we’ve been nursed on,
lives spent weaning ourselves away.

New paths uncharted and unfamiliar,
fear and doubt direct our moves, beyond world’s end.
Holding on to what we know, sacrificing what could be,
unknowingly binding ourselves to our past.

Can I find the clue to guide my way,
someone to lead me forward to my future?  
Let me feel renewed and alive,
so I search beyond my limits for my life in you.

Crashing into life, frame shattered.
You’ve put an end to my flight down the eternal mile.
Red scattered about, broken shards of life by the roadside.
You have shut me down bruised and battered.

Can someone save this body of mine?
Can someone put this mind at peace?
Samaritans come to rescue and ease the pain
of a body and soul that can run no longer.

Oh blessed hands from above,
have you spared the heart that beats within?
Have you cupped me in your palm?
Can I believe that you stand by to protect me once more?

I met myself among the ruins of life
The quiet simplicity of truth has left me speechless.
Around me I find discarded ideas and beliefs,
shells of relationships and the cries of lost ones.  

You’ve finally let me go after a battle so long fought.  
Gone to let me grow, to stumble though life on my own,
with the myths of youth scattered about my feet.
What is truth?

A lifetime since we said goodbyes
still I find you in my thoughts and dreams.
Kissed by your loving care.  
and protected by your memory.

Memories crying, screaming to be heard.
Try as I might to bury these amidst busy days,
still they rise from the backyard of my mind haunting my dreams,
making youth a nightmarish memory.

Empty rooms cry out in agonizing silence.
White ghosts float on lifeless bodies with the same question; why?
Anxious moments still taunt just beyond of safety.
The sickness that gave birth to this still clouds the mind.  

So long ago, a lifetime to make peace, still lucid moments of torment
making March an anniversary dirge.
It makes no sense to cry for those gone, for mortals spent in tragedy,
yet every year I try to understand once again, why?

I’ve kept to the high road in life,
only in my mind.
Thinking myself wise to avoid
the pitfalls others faced.

A warm wind blew up from my past
and there you stood.
A memory of childhood
and view to my future.

Old and new, my path I find in you.
You’ve led me to the back roads,
on trails I’d left ignored,
looking outside the familiar at you.

For a while we walked together,
hand in hand following love’s path
caught up in the voice it called.
Suddenly, I found you had gone, taking another path.

Now I’m left abandoned, alone again
blinded by my fear to move.
For I’ve lost my way on these back roads
without my guide and without my love.

Can you find me hiding here beneath this veil
Can you see the real me?
Did you look inside this woman to find the
frightened insecure girl wanting only to be loved.

Enough of the sorrow and sadness that filled me for so long!  
I’m making a choice to leave it behind
creating a new life to go, grabbing it on the run.
Running from the memories of pain and loneliness and
making a new take away me.