alter ego

When the night is still and

I hear the sounds of silence

my mind suddenly awakens to an unseen life,

a soul that stirs my world of thoughts,

blinds my vision, pirouetting as

a whiff of fresh air, undeterred, unfettered

by the chains of realism, daring to believe,

prances on my restless shadow that can’t

but deny the magnetic aura.

My alter ego?

My soul seeks to feel

the freedom, the freshness of youth,

the gay abandon and the frolic that

once drove my being.

I touch the spirit of reality instead

gathering a disturbed night where I

pay for the silence in the vortex

of a storm that binds me.

I can’t free myself from the gathering swirl,

from a space and time that are no longer mine.

Can’t reach the beckoning light, the presence

from where I breathe in gasps.

My soul struggles to break free,

I strive to step into the other realm

even as my mind craves and despairs.

I turn away as moments that engulfed me

start fading into nothingness.

In an unreal world, where time is still,

mind is free, dreams are real, aura blend,

maybe it’s where my alter ego exists,

my mind whispers knowingly,

nebulous…young, undefined,

remote, beyond my reach.

I smile quietly, with tears in my eyes

and turn back into the silent night.