for longer than I know I have roamed,

restlessly drawn back into the dank

chambers of a subterranean realm, while

the world weaves the fabric of sleep.

time has deepened my iron-caged descent,

clanking down corroded creaking shafts

into cavernous corridors who breathe

the menacing damp that accompanies

each foray to the dark recesses of mind,

to swing a rusty pick at the mute stony,

hard-faced rock of ages, whose seams I

have long chiselled and chipped at in vain

without ever mining its prized gems,

instead, I sift repeatedly through mountains

of shards, coal chaff, superficial detritus

from a face that guards blackened nuggets,

until my lungs swell with choking dead dust

that forces another evacuation, a fruitless

return to solitary confinement to wrestle

with ruminations that turn me inside out,

an alienated, contorted, frame forced to

bear the weight of persistent unanswered

musings about this futile life charade, 

and who I really am, with no prospect of slumber.

 

.