Trapped…

Like an old key trying to negotiate
the tumblers of a weathered padlock that
have been rusted by the reagent of time,
vigilantly guarding a chest of glimmering treasure.
The key lost in a labyrinth of steel and iron,
the glittering gems within resigned to decay in grim obscurity
with their gleaming radiance entombed in a dark abyss of confinement and captivity…

Stifled…

Like the orbs of molten metal
that lie dormant on the ocean floor,
whose vibrant hues ripple through the leagues of sapphire blue in golden spears.
In primal ferocity they try to pierce the shield of the surface,
eroded to mere twinkling arrowheads by the fathoms of water as they begin their onslaught.
Only to be struck down by the Ocean
and forever cast down into the void of the empty space
that gladly welcomes all that could have been
into its loving embrace…

Imprisoned…
Like the innocent words of a book that lie engulfed in a sea of white oblivion,
slaves to the whimsical literary faculty of the writer,
as he channels his vein of imagination bound by human vice
with the scourge of self-expression, as letter after letter is beat into submission by he anvil of arbitrary composition.
Mere foot soldiers in his grand siege to shackle the mind of the reader,
and starve it of creative nectar,
imprisoning their thoughts
as writer’s block looms overhead like a specter…

Liberated…
Unable to recognize the struggles of the world around him,
yet most certainly able to empathize with them,
the victim plagued with this insufferable condition
scrapes the recesses of his mind for even wisps of creativity that may be still be intact.
Unbeknownst to this pitiful soul,
that within the burning furnace of the stifling drought,
something is fermenting.
It is…
the lubricant to the rusted lock,
the grindstone that sharpens those twinkling arrowheads of light,
and the wisdom that bestows one with the ability to break free of the chains that imprison words to a fate of slavery and finally set them free...