We swear vows to each other — but the air is empty and hollow,  
we drown in words like leaves in an autumn pond,  
our souls crack open like the rotten planks of a dinghy,  
we cannot stay as two, but must sail on alone.

We hide behind a mask both the pain and the last of our hoping,  
we build our castles of sand on the edge of the void.  
There, where love is mere words and a few meager garments,  
where gold settles like dust on the luminous "you."

In chasing fame and power, we forget the ones we are,  
we lose the fragments of the soul in this race for false honor.  
We hoard our gold in coffers, as though it could save us,  
but forget that freedom and purity are never for sale.

We sell the soul for the phantom glow of the storefronts,  
we thrash about in search of some new artificial role,  
we wander in solitude on through the labyrinth,  
where every step inflicts on us fresh wounds.

But one day, perhaps, in the desolate hush,  
we will tear from ourselves all the needless faces,  
and it will grow clear — that what lies deep in the soul  
was always light, and never shadow and a cry…