A beast we've fed, and called our own.

When this city's daylight outshines the Sun's gaze,
When the bird's song pales to a child's laughter's blaze,
When this era unfurls as a new world's dawn,
I stand, shadowed by sins I cannot outrun.

Oh Lord, happiness is a stranger I don't seek,
I long instead for the silence of feeling's peak.
My eyes drown nightly in rivers of despair,
While nightmares weave an endless snare.

Alone on winding roads, I search in vain,
For things unreal, a solace to my pain.
The only vision my heart dares to weave,
The only truth my soul can conceive.

Lord, may I touch the strands of your sorrow,
Embrace the ache that shapes your tomorrow?
So I might know, amidst this hollowed moan,
That I am not wholly alone, not wholly alone.

The chasm between us yawns vast and wide,
Greater than Berlin's rift in seventy-five's tide.
Yet in our hearts, a shared torment lies,
The monster we've nursed under fractured skies.

It devours us both, from soul to bone,
A beast we've fed, and called our own.