The Ache

Reach deep into the depths of my soul

Beneath this mystical woodland forest that I have created

Out of my mind of literature and lore

Past every prewritten world and fantasy

Every aching bone that has, by now, given into the trick I dealt

They believe, now, that they are real

Or they are too exhausted to protest

It matters little to me

But in the murky abyss of these tired varicose veins

Lies a music box that I have longed to forget

I no longer succumb to the cherubic constraints

Of desperately innocent pasts

It is disgustingly real

And everything real

Is not to be remembered at all

Discarded, untampered

Fatal and fickle

Real never lasts at all

Tonight, I slip into my own nightmares

A scrapbook of pasts quilted together

Stitched so neatly I can hardly tell what is real

Though real matters little to me now

I feel like a tourist in here

I am trapped in a cacophony of smiles that are destined to fade

Engulfed in wax dolls that melt even in shade

Condemned to a life of childlike discord

Oozing inside a monster under my bed filled with primordial doom

The adults are talking and the dream is so lucid I can hear them through sleep

They say they know not how I ended up in this wretched place

If I grew too fast or failed to grow

Feverish now, and the trance refuses to break

Hesitantly, I take one step into the ache

Before my mind can understand what my hands are doing

These rough, calloused fingers turn the handle of the music box

Before my feet can take off and run from the memory

A sweet, familiar, haunting melody

Erupts from this scarlett crypt

Musetta’s Waltz just like the script

Of all those wistful years ago

And all those wistful years ago

Seem not so wretched anymore