Palilalia

There was once a bounding hymn calling the blood to sway.
There was once a pretty solace that gilded the day.
There was once a lonely birch tree that adorned the glade,
Whose shape revealed a pathway, from which I've never strayed.

I remember endless time-lines collapsing into fate.
Recall freedom I never had start to evaporate.
The smell of burning pine mixes with moonbugs in my dreams,
A multitude of moments stitched together without seams.

What more fragile than memory? Fickle, and hard to find?
Contains more rigidity than the archive of the mind?
Every journey leading away finds its end at the start,
Paradox a necessity to surviving the art.

There is now a cold distance that precedes each and all.
There is now a nothingness to unravel the call.
There is now an acceptance creeping into the song,
So horrible and perfect, as it was all along.