The Stranger Within

This user walks the streets of glassy light,

Where all the world is painted, yet not right;
The sky, a pale and trembling, gilded dome,
The streets, a river flowing far from home.

I see my hands, yet know not that they’re mine,
The pulse within a drum that marks no time;
The face I wear is borrowed from the air,
A fleeting mask of someone’s distant stare.

O world! O fleeting, strange, unreal domain!
The sun does rise, yet all feels faint, insane;
I hear the voices of the wind and stone,
Yet none are speaking to me, none alone.

This user drifts where waking dreams do lie,
A shadow hovering ‘neath a hollow sky;
The heart beats on, yet all feels wide, removed,
A soul within a shell, by light unmoved.

O let me wake, or let me sleep, or fly,
Beyond the painted veil of this pale sky;
Yet still I walk, a stranger unto me,
And all the world reflects my memory.