Slowly Burning

Curious, lingering thoughts
From the back of my mind will return,
As I lay down to rest and the restless remains
Of a memory flare up and burn.

From my innocent childhood dreams and desires
To the people I'd loved and then lost,
In the present revived are these happier times.
But this happiness comes at a cost:

The nostalgia of things left abandoned behind,
And the pain of confronting the past...
And the knowledge that morning will come soon enough,
For a fantasy's not meant to last.

But they linger just after I open my eyes,
Wisps of smoke hanging still in the air,
Like a whisper drowned out by the roar of the wind
That moves past you like hands through your hair.

Like an echo, thereafter, the memories fade,
As the dream crawls back into my head.
Back to life once again; one more day, one less night,
One less reason to get out of bed.

Stripped of all that had kept me from falling apart,
I'm a candle left out in a storm,
Surrounded by nothing but coldness, where love
Is the only thing keeping me warm.

Between truth and delusion should lines then be drawn,
I cannot tell you how I'll survive;
All I've known of your love are the dreams that you haunt,
And these fantasies that I contrive.

But in waking I see how they're empty and vain,
And that wishing will not make them real.
Knowing this, still I keep crawling back from the truth
To the foolish and guilty ideal.

Can I not bring myself to move forward?
I would rather keep dreaming than try...
Losing all motivation, I'm useless.
All that's left is to dream and to die.