Breaking Chains

A muted TV mumbles
behind a door
as if from a motel
empty but for weary bodies
looking for repose
and fleeting pleasure.

A preacher, fearing divinity,
the early morning creeping up,
red ready to streak the unborn day,
witnessing countless immoralities
through the blind camera lens.

Lest we forget why
we are groping the dark walls
in existence's cave,
we extend meaningless banter
and poorly delivered speeches
beyond rationality
and selectively forget phrases
we wish to ignore.

Regardless of sorrow,
apology or joy,
or simply intolerable attachment,
we lose that which we try hardest
to protect and prevent loss.

O, how irony surrounds us,
the human mind fickle:
a deceptive villain,
hiding behind Reason and Conscience
and the fallacy of the heart.

Subject to the whims of synapses,
we drift between happiness and fear,
never remembering the question
while groping desperately for an answer.

Mutual dependence:
a single-sighted beast,
beating Reason into submission,
failing to understand the more complex,
animal instincts,
inborn desires reign
leaving only two answers.

Can we continue down a path
of rocks and tar,
a road paved in pain
and pocked with teardrops,
lined in white,
dark uncertainty creeping inward?

Or must we swerve,
leaving behind rocks and tar,
shattering the bright lines of Conscience,
and asking the most basic of questions?

No, no.
We do not dare break Love's chains
for they,
like Satan to his Maker,
define Reason and Conscience.

Then must Conscience
become like a muted preacher’s picture,
delivering a predictable, silent message
to the masses of conflict and pain
that invariably dwell within.