The corridor echoes for ten thousand years

Empty, but for the taps of my patient soles

And the drop of my perpetual tears

Swallowed by its pinprick holes.

Its gray buttressed walls rest still,

Silent as a withered, muted ghost,

Frenzied, groping each window's sill

Desperate to escape eternity's host.

Lining the hall are silent sleepers,

Each tossing in dream's delight,

Unaware of night's worrisome creepers,

That feast on unfettered fright.

Infinitely, they stretch beyond

Human bodies without number

Each more than their neighbour fond

Of their never ending slumber

Tempted, I kneel by one

Beautiful and expressionless at my advance

Pale face unknown to sun,

Sunken eyes which cannot meet my glance.

My tongue is restless, betraying words

That I no longer wish to bear,

But pretending that she has heard

Will not force her to ever hear.

A flutter glimpsed in tranquil eye

A sacred twist in pleasant lip

A reaction to my lullaby?

Or perhaps an inserted quip?

I shake her flimsy corpse

With vehemence unknown to man.

I scream until my throat is hoarse

Until I was not who I am.

Doth she wake beneath my trembling arms?

Reaching out to grab my hand?

Has she shattered through the accursed charm

To return to living lands?

A smile crosses inanimate guise.

She must feel who stirs her so.

Beneath heavy lids she intently spies.

Before all knowledge this I know.

So why does she not awake,

Clinging to oppressive sleep?

Why does she drown in shallow lake

Or call anthill a mountain steep?

A murderous slap across the face

Done from a primal source of rage

My bellows forever fill the place,

Décor from a long forgotten age.

Her grin serves to only mock

The frantic hope that clogged my veins.

For even in the stolid clock

Can be found a face in pain.

Is that gaze just conjecture?

Crazed mind in its delusion

Have I become the standard lecture

With regards to feigned illusion?

Her head lies softly on a pillow of stone

A cadaver deprived of gore.

Her smile leaves with an airless moan,

Which I have practiced to ignore.

My warped form is left unwhole

With the receding comforts of my mind.

I walk the gallery of ascended souls

As the one they left behind.