You gathered stones to throw against your brothers in the night
And just like Cain released your hidden rage
Denied your father’s pride and mother’s loving just for spite
Running like a madman from a cage

In retrospect, you always had somebody else to blame
You never would admit when you were wrong
Which made it so much easier for you to change your name
The chaos you created made you strong

Soon enough, with little effort, you found yourself alone
Listening twice as much as you would speak
The weight of words that held your tongue
Became your heart of stone
Which made the ones around you seem so weak

Your friends were only stepping stones to justify your hate
They never knew they were part of your plans
You made them all your enemies to cast outside your gate
While turning page to page from boy to man

The distance was a barrier you set up by design
Never would you let defenses down
And love was just a weapon that you hid inside your mind
A certain power you could call your own

You pushed away the angels sent to minister to you
Rejected any grace rained down from God
Wasting time with devils when the finer ones would do
Approved the death of conscience with a nod

Kept your heart in prison, and you threw away the key
Locked out any chance of true love
Walked inside of darkness, but somehow, you still could see
A fault that you could never rise above

Accumulated money and the better things in life
Your adversaries trampled underfoot
Burned the ones who cared for you and cheated on your wife
Turned your world into a pile of soot

And then, when you hit bottom, you had nowhere left to go
Your castles all collapsed on shifting sands
A monument to nothing was the only thing to show
Like heeps of ashes sifting through your hands

You looked into a mirror, seeing nothing looking back
A murderer dressed in a suit and tie
Could not discern the difference between fantasy or fact
The life you built was nothing but a lie

Then clutching at your chest, the mirror turned into a floor
You found that you were face up on your back
The sound of heavy footsteps walking toward your bedroom door
The echoed pounding of your heart attack

Then looking up he stared into the darkness of his plight
The grip of fear wrung tight around his breath
And somewhere in the ceiling cracks, he saw a distant light
That looked to be the angel of his death

Coming ever closer til it shined inside his eyes
Burning deep inside his frightened soul
Then all the walls around him simply melted into sky
And pounded through his head as thunder rolls

The floor had vanished also as he floated into space
The angel tried to keep him from the light
He saw his life flash by him as if he were in a race
Then, swiftly melted in the dark of night

Picture after picture flying faster back in time
His life of conquest flashed before his eyes
Playing like a movie of the thoughts inside his mind
A rambling tale of money, loss, and lies

The footsteps getting louder now, the room is getting colder
An image of a man all dressed in white
The pictures are dissolving, and a hand is on his shoulder
Telling him that it will be alright

A voice surrounds his body, whispering “Are you afraid?”
He answers yes, although his mouth can’t move
It lifts him up until he’s looking down upon the scene
There’s nothing more that he can ask or choose

Then suddenly, the sky explodes into a cloud of fire
He sees his wretched life for what it was
His mind cries out for one more chance as if he could acquire
The only answer heard is “Well enough!”

So there he lays outside hell’s door or maybe heaven’s gate
There’s no way he can truly ever know
A deathly silence bearing down upon him as he waits
The white light faded to a gentle glow

The waiting is his torture as he thinks about his life
The space between the living and the dead
A road he walked so fearless, like a tightrope for a knife
To cut out all the doubts inside his head

But now his memories haunt him as he journeys through his past
He sees the tiny house where he was born
A place that he despises like a question never asked
A tiny flower placed among the thorns

He waited in the window for a love that never came
Some faces from the past he never knew
But haunted by this memory, he felt himself to blame
For all the strife in life that he went through

He waited in the wings while others quickly
Passed him by, they always seemed to get the better breaks
But then he learned the secret that would help him reach the sky
The things you want in life you simply take

As often as he saw the chance, he’d bend the rules at hand
To keep the odds stacked up against his wall
To crush the competition to the point they couldn’t stand
Let all the fools around him take the fall

And as he grew, he waited for the right girl to arrive
A plaything with some money none the less
He gave her just enough love that she barely could survive
A marriage of convenience at its best

He waited for the chance to strike his enemies at the knees
To make a killing when the stocks would fall
He crushed his enemies by doing whatever he pleased
Why settle for less when he could have it all

But now he waits in silence as the time drags slowly by
The days melt into night and back again
It’s not for you to know exactly when you truly die
The life you lead will haunt you in the end

TM DiSarro

©2023 TM DiSarro / MindScapesPublishing

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