The Playground- Part II

Hope-
Looks an awful lot like the burning heart
I wore on the playground,

On that wet, dreary day,
Following you after you had run away-

I knew right where you'd be-

So I stood under that tree
Where I had taught you to climb-
Now time and the cursed fruit it bears
Has brought us here.

It was fear, wasn't it?
The one who told you to run away with him here

Did you show you the danger he bore?
Or did you assume by his looming presence
that you had no choice?

Or did that alluring voice deceive you?
You believed, when he told you not to trust me.

So you ran with your companion and came
To this spot where I first met you.

There you are, sitting at the bottom
Of the slide you never could climb-
And I can see the questions you couldn't shake off-

The questions that brought you here-
To the beginning.

When did you forget how I spent my days singing over you,
Quieting the voices,
Drowning out your worries?

You were hurried once before
And I can see it's in your eyes again-
Hurried to throw your life away to anyone who would ask,
Because you don't think anyone,
Even me,
Can see past that mask you wear-
As a bandage more than anything-
To cover what you call disfigurement
And I call imprisonment.

It's what I've already set you free from...

Yet you let fear come and tell you differently-
The liar even had the audacity to say you weren't free
And never have been.

In an instant, that mask was reborne,
But I know the years have worn it-
And you-
Down.

Isn't that why you came to where you knew I'd find you?

Hope- that I might give chase-
So you came to this place.

Here I am.

And your heavy gaze looking up to meet mine-
Looks an awful lot like redemption.

The Playground- Part I

Apathy-
Running up a slide I went down without noticing,
Down the deep hole seeped with lies-
Deceptions I fell for,
Falling softly, the Piper seducing me,
Reducing me to carnal flesh,
Leading me here- to this place I feared I'd come
Down the Rabbit Hole my Spirit heart was never meant to go-
Slipping down this slide
To a place where I can hide
So well
No one knows I've gone missing.
Kissing my alluring Tempter while they see
Only a mask of smiles and okays

Because I've wasted these days in weary anger,
Too tired to have even desired answering that illusive question,
"What's wrong?"
It's always been easier for me to hide in the shadows with Pain,
My seductive companion,
Who hides in the playground of my confused
And plays kind

As if he is the only one who understands,
Who will stand by me.
And I fall for him.
Every time,
With every enticing rhyme of his
Drawing me closer to the edge of this slide
Until-

Here I am,
Externally fine,
But in my mind?
The term they use is backslidden.

I might say "upcrawling,"
Falling again,
Slipping every time back down because
Truthfully?
I don't know what's waiting at the top,
And so this Apathy causes me to stop halfway....

And I don't know what I want.