Come inside.

"I know why you're scared to stay with me... they crucify me at every turn and I wanted to fight but I haven't the might. So I'll dream of you hoping for the day..."

I compiled while I dreamed. Thinking perhaps... no... not the last but a turning point. Something to close the door.

"Are you tired of speaking for the dead? I never knew this evil had a name, in here, broken and bruised."

It was once only myself in this place. Occasionally a door would open, the light would pour in, my eyes would burn and I would scream. The door would close again and it was just me. Alone.

"From these lungs I scream yet I am silent still and I have everything but a real life. And what I thought I'd be is just a memory of a wish I'd made when I was still in hell."

But the steps returned. The first an old friend partially responsible for the last time I opened my mouth to the anonymous who could not reply. The second... we stood in the cold chill of October together smoking... dreaming... hoping.

"But is she here? Is she awake?"

Each week we push forward. Each of them dragging a little more from me. Coaxing me from the dark. The light hurts but it is healing.

"Oh yes, I'm fine. I'm making it up as I go along. And this, is it, I'm playing along the building blocks at my feet are just toys for fun."

Memories of childhood. Sometimes I'm never sure if they're real or just something I dreamed. Sometimes I relive these in the space of a second when I stand before them, tearing open wounds and bleeding through my mouth.

"When will you blame yourself for what you are and what's become of you?"

Each one closer... bringing the evolution closer. I ask, "Are we there yet?" Shaun tells me, "No, we're not." Bear watches from her stool, her eyes shifting around the room. Absorbing.

Dorian and Kev stand ready. They're bouncing in anticipation... and impatience.

"It was then that I saw that it was a dream. The only soul in that place was me alone. I died alone."

....

"I can curse the sun but I'll always need its light."

Still compiling. Reaching through the past. Finding the moment that I need to push through. There it is. It hurts to remember today.

"There's no difference between you and I. Just the hope that you make it right."

Sometimes it kills you just as much as heals you. But then when you are unmade by one, you can be reformed by another. Irony? Perhaps?

"Release me from this shattered shell, it's time to go I know it well..."

We play "Silence" and the drums kick through my chest and knock me back into the present. It's hard to say how long I was gone.

"But then that's, the lesson learned."

I'm forgetting.

"Take that pill to keep me awake. I guess these things just happen this way."

Have you figured it out?