Stairs

Here I climb my solitary stairs,
Tired and sweaty as I grow.
I’m not sure where the climb began.
I can’t remember what the first stair looked like
Or what it felt like when my feet weren’t sore.

For all the time trapped in my mind I have marched:
Up and up, around and around these spiraling stairs,
Unsure where they lead.
I know it’s there though, the end... Of climbing anyway.

There’s something better up there, beyond the stairs.
A place of rest, I think,
Rest from the climbing.

The journey is not monotonous.
Some stairs have been broken before me… Abused.
Sometimes I crumble them beneath my own feet.
It makes it harder not to fall.

I’m tired and sweaty as I grow
Taller, maybe a bit wiser. Definitely more wary.
I watch more and more carefully for jutting crags,
For boulders and gaps in the stairs.
You’d be surprised how invisible they become on these foggy flights.

Sometimes I want to stop, just rest a while,
But when I look back I see that the stairs are gone,
Vanished behind me and fading beneath me.
There is nothing, or the climb.

The end is something I can’t see
I don’t know where it is,
I don’t know what it will look like,
And yet I feel no fear.

I hear whispers about the end.
They say many different things.
Here it is bliss, here it is torment,
Here it is even nonexistent: the stairs just stop then nothing.

It might be true, that last one.

Though I like to muse it's everything,

Nothing wouldn't be so bad.

I could return to the nothing and dream forever.

But for now, at least,
I am tired and sweaty as I grow.

I will climb.

Excerpts from the world between yesterday and tomorrow.

The sun is brighter than usual when you're around.
It's like your laugh makes it smile.
The sound always makes me glow a little,
Wakes me up in the middle of the night with a joy that breaks my heart.
My dreams aren't the best artists, they never quite capture the magic of it.
Someday you'll laugh for me again, but until then I'll wake up sad.
It's so much better than forgetting your laugh altogether.

---

Once in a while I battle dragons.
Sometimes they take me down, but that's only when I don't have you to fight for.
I conquer mountains of enemies in the night for all of you.
Suspenseful dreams are only nightmares when I can't rescue my little world.

---

Songs try to write themselves at night.
I don't know why, but I love the sad ones best.
Maybe it's because they're familiar?
More likely it's that they've survived not being okay.
The loop of familiarity and denial is a deadly constant, but a constant it is.

---

Thoughts like to think that they're slimmer than they really are.
The maximum occupancy of my mind is always pushed to the brink when I lay my head down.
For me, rest has always been a shy little creature.
I think it's afraid to join in, to create a place within my mind to make an impression.
I look forward to the day it calls ahead for reservations.
Until then I hope my thoughts try a diet.