Barriers

Barriers 

Like most people 

I unknowingly hit barriers 

that I myself 

have set up. 

These barriers

these barricades 

are structures built 

to protect the sheltered 

and fragile core 

of what I've come to know 

as simply me. 

But in these days 

of reaching out 

for stability 

and open doors 

to the soul, 

the once might structures turn vile. 

cemented with hurt memories

and lathered with petty jealousies,  

the protectors turn to jailers. 

Anxiety ropes me back 

in the effort for me to lunge forward 

like a dog on a chain.

As I try and bring down the old regime 

of bitterness and nervousness to those outside my walls, 

the depressed soul stirs 

and tries to coax me back into the familiar waters 

that nearly drowned me 

so long ago. 

With each timber I tear down 

I get more splinters

to remind of what I am losing 

with these new outgoing goals. 

But no matter how ragged my hands become 

from the opening wounds I create, 

I see the light on the other side of those lofty walls.

A reminder to those younger days 

when I wanted to welcome in the vast world around me 

instead of block it out 

and live in my own world 

of monsters and forgotten beasts. 

But that world is dying 

and I wish to adapt and fly away from it 

instead of perish into the most lonely of extinctions

as a creature in a cage.