A Bonfire of my Words

I sit here,
Warming the frozen fragments of my soul,
On a bonfire of itself.
For what are these pieces that fly around me?
Mere shreds of torn paper?
Or a web of words woven by my soul,
On emotional crests and troughs,
Through zeniths, nadirs, summits and abysses,
There was only one recourse for my wretched soul -
To plough on through weeds of words and nurture the wasted garden,
That languished underneath.

Years 'pon haggard years,
Had those loose reams of precious words marked,
Yet with heartless fingers today,
I betrayed my companions of years past.
My fingers hurt and bore stray marks,
Of a struggle to let loved ones leave.
They were constant till the end,
With their company in adversity.

How many times in the times bygone,
Had I built up my castles of words,
Even as all around me,
To pieces fell my world.
And I darted around, wounded,
An arrow stinging my breast,
Yet filling my castle with puppets,
Their strings entwined in my fist.

My helplessness with my destiny,
Stopped right at the threshold there,
And the puppets grinned my unsmiled smiles,
And they shed my unwept tears.
It was my world of retreat,
Into my imagination's cocoon,
Stories, characters, feelings,
Beaded in strings of my words.

Today I bid them farewell,
And shed my lonesome tears,
It's not a catharsis, this fire;
But their death - a punishment.
Tis to add to the pain and take it to the peak,
And let it finally end.
So they glower amber, flicker and burn,
Smouldering remains, of the ashes of my soul.