The Broken Road

The Broken Road

I am a drifter. My past is my own,
Long since forgotten of any concept of home,
I chose no-one to miss me; I have no-one to miss,
Away from the whispers and muttering hiss
Of those who would paint me in bitter-tongued lies,
But right now I’m here, what’s done is behind,
The path before me echoes, distant and cold,
Full of the fears of growing old,
I remember the childhood of innocent play,
Of losing myself in dreams and in hay,
The room I had painted and filled with my song,
Was messy and sad, yet at least I belonged.

Between me and that now lies a broken road,
Regrets and remembrances, all I have to show,
Years in which I grew too old, too fast,
Have long since enveloped my distant past,
I made that line broken, made it fall apart,
So you could not follow it back to the start,
For out on the horizon melting into a dot,
Is a life-time of memories that are best left forgot,
A mountain of things that were better not seen,
Left me drowning in musings of what could have been.

The sun’s now fled, to a sky somewhere else,
I am left only with the company of myself,
Rain stretched down to splinter at my feet,
The sound wraps my ears in the weeping of the street,
The wind sings its song from far behind,
And there’s a pain in a heart, which I recognise as mine,
So scared to have it, even more scared to lose,
Chained by a past that won’t let me choose,
So I stand here lonely, defined by the rain,
Its dark silver spears, reflecting my pain,

It’s the memories of things that cut you inside,
The lashes and laces of each acidic lie,
The barbed wire that slices my childhood from me,
The lustful memories of the times that were free.
Every one of those thoughts they cut ‘til I bled,
Screaming of things, my tongue knows not to have said,
Like the pavement that had once gashed my arm,
Like the glass that had once opened my palm,
The memories they sealed my fate shut,
They broke into me and cut, and cut.

I cried then tears of those lamented souls,
Those who know only the feeling of cold,
Who’ve forgotten how to forget.
Regretting the memories they regret.
Then in a trickle, a crash, a deafening scream.
There I lay crumbled in a bed of my dreams.

Then when I remember, I scar every time,
So I’d turn my back on that long broken line,
Facing the future feeling hair touching rain,
There’s No-one to listen, yet I try to explain,
I’m alone in the darkness, my tears building a mist,
For I have no-one to miss me, and no-one to miss,
Speaking to the stars and ears unknown,
For I am a drifter, and my past is my own.