Gather my Chains

All these chains are binding me. My arms, my legs, and even my soul. These chains are my shadow, they cannot be removed. I wish i were like Peter Pan, for then I could be free. Free from this and free from that. Free from all things unnecessary. That is all I want. But all of these... these expectations, these chains, they bind me down they strangle me. They're like a noose, and my feet refuse to stop twitching. Just clinging to life, refusing to let go. I don't want to die, but I just might choke.

If I cannot surface from these crushing waves, I will drown in my own attempts at accomplishment. I will not break, I will not bow, as the song goes. If you know the song, you know these lyrics, they are my mantra. Forever repeated in the confines of my head. My one true solace, my one release, is that of music. Words, screaming, whispering, shouting, pounding. They let me breathe, they let me see. The searing riffs, the blaze of drums, the roiling vocals, they show me a door. A door to a world I wish were my home. A world where expectations are simply that you try your best.

And even when your failed attempts appear to be horrid, all anyone will say: "You did your best. That's all you can hope for." Yet even then you try, try, and try again. If you practice hard and you practice well, you will accomplish what you wanted to. But that door is forever sealed. The opening mechanism shall never be revealed. In this world, this world of chains, all you can do is bear the burden. It's like a book that I once read, there was a scene that took place in hell, yet its concept was different than most i've heard.

The defeated and dead, burdened with chains, were to follow a trail and cross a bridge over a river of flames. And upon this bridge, there were many nails and to one side there was a hand rail. The burdened were to gather their chains, bundled in their arms, and cross the bridge. But to use the rail to lessen the burden of their chains would alert the sentinel patrolling the flames. Said sentinel would speed down the river with a hook in his hand, and snag the chains from the rail, the burdened would then be dragged through the flames for all eternity. Never reaching the top of the trail, never gaining another chance to escape from hell.

My life is like this, I must carry my chains. The rail means to fall, never to regain my feet. Yet all I can do is carry on, and hope the sentinel has no cause to snag my chains. For I do not want to be eternal food for the flames. But at the top of the trail, there is a light, one that few see with there own sight. The distance is long, and I have only but begun. The bridge of nails, the burden of chains, the temptation of the rail, the wrath of the sentinel. It all weighs in my mind.

But at last I decide, I shall gather my chains.