I am here
Crouched in a corner
Your picture in my hand
and a torch burning fitfully
in my mind

I feel so distant and sleepy
I feel like I'm dead but animated
I don't want to go on like this
But I don't want to let go

I don't know what to do with this
Don't know where it ends

If I could find myself
I could release you
But still I'm lost
Lost in the lick of a flame
Somehow I'm freezing

I feel too low to search for another
and in my heart I'm not sure I even want to
I don't know how to escape the flames of desire
And with each day the flames burn hotter

...leaving me so cold...
Frozen amid the flames

I was taken in, given life
Love was given falsely; ultimately
One mistake after another
Ignorance leading the way

I feel impossibly cold
Adrift on a frozen lake of fire
My pulse continually slows
as the torch in my mind
burns and burns and burns

Within the red flames I dwell
and the door to my dwelling is barred

The torch burns on and on

With gratitude to Robert Frost
and the year 1996, which is when this was originally written.