Meeting Strangers

The kitchen is a wilderness, the classroom is a mass

Men and women wandering, through they pass.

So many faces, so many names, I cannot know them all;

Then against their pressure I raise my walls

There are days I give in to losing

Empty spaces of my choosing

There are nights I forget to hold on

So I let go

I have to let go

Once the walls have risen they stand lonely in the air

Keeping me from speaking, keeping me from time.

I stand here in the corner, back against the wall,

I know not how to leave here, I try only not to fall.

There are days I give in to losing

Empty spaces of my choosing

There are nights I forget to hold on

So I let go

I have to let go

I do not wish to stay here, I pray that I can leave

It seems that keeping limbo makes it hard to breathe

The others all can see me, but do not say a word

They think that my silence means I am not heard

There are days I give in to losing

Empty spaces of my choosing

There are nights I forget to hold on

So I let go

I have to let go

My walls divide me from them, splitting me in two

Once worn as shield and armor, now a useless rune

Defending gates and parapets have become a prison cold

And now a sea of weeping sweeps over my soul

There are days I give in to losing

Empty spaces of my choosing

There are nights I forget to hold on

So I let go

I have to let go

Would that the walls and gates and doors

Fell swiftly as they rise,

Would that these cold hard stones of thought

Melted in the mind.

A single unkind word to me is enough to seal the door

A single thoughtless action enough to start a war

There are days I give in to losing

Empty spaces of my choosing

There are nights I forget to hold on

So I let go

I have to let go

I see the gates and tower walls as clearly as the day

I see the prison bars and guards patrolling in the way

I know that I can walk on through, but something keeps me here

Fear or sorrow or loneliness, I know not from the tears

There are days I give in to losing

Empty spaces of my choosing

There are nights I forget to hold on

So I let go

I have to let go

The keeper may have sealed the doors, but I still have the key;

To brave the gauntlet of despair is to step out and walk free.

Beyond these walls lies a world of terror and despair

Yet Pandora’s Box held hope as well; perhaps this forms a pair.

There are days I give in to losing

Empty spaces of my choosing

There are nights I forget to hold on

So I let go

I have to let go