Sleeper

What resides between
My villainy and my veins
What great aspirations cower
Before a lesser fate
What design is writ
Upon the stones atop my grave
What world exists
Just beyond the gate

I'll not know, today
I keep hidden away
With drawn smile disguise
And a pocket full of lies
Held tight, the only way
To keep this cold world at bay

What resides, with nails dug deep
'Neath broken skin
What clouds would protect me
From distant hope
That should I fall
It will bruise but not break
What would you call weakness
That keeps the beaten whole 

I'll not know, today
But lock it away
Behind the length of this sentence
And 'neath the weight of my madness
Held up, only
By these hours awake

For love resides, quiet
And cold in this cage
Sharing only the light
Of a single small flame
She writes down a story
Page after page
Wond'ring how I could be lonely
When she feels the same.