Seven years of living under ground
A safe comfort like a mother’s womb
A darkness impenetrable to pain
Seven years of blind ambition
Searching for an emergency exit
Desperate to feel the rain
Seven years of loneliness
Smothering in a stale mold
A unfathomable dank chill
Seven years of gritting teeth
Clawing in a frenzy
Held against my strongest will
Earth still fresh from tunneling
A battered frantic scout
Felt the warm sun briefly
Frightened by a shadow of doubt
Will burrow deep this time
Tap the dirt hard after I’ve fled
I’ll tunnel underground once more
Licking old wounds from which I bled
I can’t return to Gobbler’s Knob
For now the damage is done
And now and forevermore
The bright blue sky I’ll shun
For it’s never more than an illusion
A mirage for an unquenchable thirst
Living in my loneliness
Still parched and forever cursed
Seven years or more this time
I’ll dull the pain once more
Paying for a scarlet letter crime
I’m left rotten to the core
Good-bye old friend
Will miss your smile
Perhaps we’ll try again
In another lifetime perhaps
Repeated mistakes we’ll mend
