THE OTHER VOICE

Don't tell me why or when, it's not important

It's happened before, too many times

The timing is alarming not to mention questionable

The search for assurance through a sabbatical

The reaffirmation sought through prescribed absence

justifying means by incomprehensible deeds

Perhaps I am blind, besotted under my blindfold

blithely unaware beneath my blanket

and seeing things from only from one side of the conundrum

But it irks the rational when faced with abstract notions

the random pronouncement of hiatus experimental

And every time the vacuum draws out of hiding

that suppressed whisper from the darkness within

An echo from the past that stirs the pot of invective

Lacing its sugar coated murmurs with sweet poison

The other voice with its smooth and silken tongue

that plays Devil's advocate in the highest court

providing the most irrational escape route as before

Don't blame destiny, karma or past deeds

This is the now, the present carved with a sharp blade

cutting the fabric, slicing through interlaced threads

Separating interwoven strands with one swift blow

Don't blame kismet, fortune or fate

This is the present, face to face with a sharp blade of steel 

driven to the hilt and armour piercing through and through

Bruising the virtual body with its sweeping edge

Leaving yet another scar on the battlefield 

And the other voice repairs not with a soothing balm

but with boulders erected around a newly formed moat

A new scaffolding to prop up the broken ramparts

that grows like a bramble spreading in all directions

Fertilised by a sprinkling of unrepeated words

Fuelled by the shadowy hiss of insusurration

Until it traps me within a castle of my making

with my silent companion, supporter, philosopher and friend

on a tightrope suspended between two bookends