Can't Decide Where My Freedom Lies

*Originally written August 18, 2008*

Can't decide
Where my freedom lies.
I'm so used to being tangled up in ethereal memories of arguments that never occurred,
Of tearful reunions
Staged out of desperate subconscious loneliness.
I'm so used to pretending in front of a hall of mirrors,
Never remembering their images, the lines of wit they espoused in their constant echoes,
Never prepared for the moment of contact
So often feared, so often longed for.
I'm so used to the "never" being always that I forgot to want anything else.
Nothing hurts more than breaking the bonds of familiarity.
Your freedom offered me the pain of holes closing
And knowing that reprimands
Would be at hand
Should I choose to open them again.
Yet faithfulness to commands uttered in years so far detached from this present
Generates a prison of my own making,
Forcing me to choose between the bondage of keeping you locked away
Or keeping me locked out for good.
One cannot be saved when not allowed to fly out from their cage.
Oh this hell of indecision!
Where are you if not needed in my present?
Why were you needed in my past, if ever?!
I cannot see beyond horizons if you continue to block my path.
Let all memory of the future never be tainted with your presence.
Let fear of leaving you behind never cross the threshold of my conscience.
Constant battles of wills,
Mastery over passions,
Duels of wit and intellect
Have ended
And now I battle with myself...
But you remain as the vestige of my enmity.
Were you to come near,
I would be tempted to scratch, bite and rake across your skin;
A visual reminder of the pain of unrequited desire.
Yet without this fear, this anguish,
Without your memory of provocation,
I am nothing.
Emptiness is cold with no hope of warmth.
Freedom carries the burden of the unknown.
A desolate land of either hope of sustenance, or fear of flood or drought.
Nothing protects from the light once found.
Shadows provide the protection of certain darkness.
Can't decide
Where my freedom lies.