Ashes of roses

Ashes of roses

I’ve been to heaven and I’ve been to hell,

I coped with both of them, and did it well,

Rejoiced in glory, the devil I fought

With all my being, and beat him, I thought…

For years I struggled, hobbling on a cane,

With ache in my heart, but a mind that was sane,

A life I was building from bricks of my past.

Oh, how I hoped that my strong wall will last!

Then out of nowhere my happiness came.

Not in a form of great wealth or fame,

But from a smile that lit up the sky,

He dried up the eternal tears in my eyes.

God, how I loved him! He was my life,

He made me laugh again, made me his wife,

We were so happy! Then winter came…

I stared at the whiteness from inside the frame

That looked out to world so open, so free,

In spite of the starkness of gray skies and trees,

And knew that my soul I have forever lost,

For my soul’s out there, covered with frost.

Thus separated there is no hope.

The wall is my prison, my life is the rope…

It’s early morning. I hear the rain

Against the window. There is that pain,

I’m aching for freedom, to be one with the mist,

And like that violent music by Liszt

I want to thunder, I want to cry,

God, make me whole again, don’t let me die…

I’m looking at roses, so gentle, so frail,

Ashes of roses bloom inside my jail.

But then tomorrow, when tossed out, they’ll burn.

From ashes they rose, and to ashes they’ll turn…