The Quiet Cost, The Quiet Trade

We are giving our everything.
Parts of ourselves we never thought we’d trade.
We quiet our dreams,
We put down our goals,
We push down our everything,
We mute everything that once made us dream.

We run through haze that never clears,
Climb hills with no end in sight,
Guided only by weary eyes,
That have seen too much,
And hearts that give too much....
At the end of the day, our souls ache.

And still.......
We don’t even know if there’s a flicker left.
Just a question in the dusk,
Is there still a spark?
A flame dancing somewhere beneath the fatigue?
Yet a whisper that says,
Hold on…

Because we are pouring, 
Pouring until we are almost left hollow,
Until there’s nothing left to give,
But the throb of unseen wounds..........

And when the world quiets,
And the lights dim,
We look around…
And we are alone.

Left with silence so heavy,
It presses into our ribs,
With the echo of things we never said,
With the weight of what we carry,
That no one sees,
And that no one could ever see.

Still we carry it.
Still we stay.
Still we give.

And somewhere beneath it all,
We silently hope,
That one day,
We won’t just survive this,
We’ll meet ourselves again,
Not as remnants, not as shadows,
But as whole,
And finally seen.