Welcome Back

wrote this piece a couple years ago to try and deal with something that refuses to go away

welcome back....the price
Category: Writing and Poetry

I hear the footsteps of a child and I open my eyes
To find myself in a place I barely recognize
In a home where only spirits dare to roam
Panic strikes! I shouldn't be alone
The footsteps stop and the floorboards creek
A draft fills the room and I hear it speak
You were here before but you ran away
Turned your back and forgot this place
You've found you're way back and we're glad your here
Enjoy your stay...you have nothing to fear
I didn't believe the phantom voice
Stuck in this place I had no choice
The floorboards creek and the footsteps soften
Coming closer my way, in this place i had forgotten
The room is dark, moldy and stinking of my fear
The tick-tock of a clock that isn't there
A phantom faucet drips and I hear a newborn cry
I stand up out of the bed, even though I'd rather die

I open the door to the room, and enter a long and narrow hallway
The empty wooden floor creaks beneath my feet, i hear the child play
The newborn cries again, I turn to run away
Keep walking boy you aren't done
There's no escape you cannot run
Not this time, no never again
You belong to us, now be a man
The voice is true, it doesn't have to lie
And closer now the newborn cries
I'm coming to the door and I hear the faucet
The door opens, I try to stop it
Powerless I go into the room, so bright
Typical bathroom industrial and white
The dripping faucet starts to flow, the cries so loud inside my head
I look to the dripping sink, to find the crying baby laying dead
In a pool of blood rotting at the bone, the cries stop but my panic rises
A clusterfuck of emotion, please take me away, no more surprises
I lose my footing and fall, blackness overtakes me as i wish for death

I awake in a new room very much alive
Staring at boy of four or five
I'd never witnessed beauty like this boy
His eyes fill my heart with sorrow and joy
His hair brown and curly, his face a mirror of my own
I've been waiting for you here all alone
For you to come back, and see my face
To see the boy you abandoned without a trace
To face yourself within my eyes, to come back home
Son, you weren't here before, how could I have known
I'd take you away, if we could just escape
How did you ever come to this place?
I'll take you away, show you what its like to be alive
MISCARRIAGE OF TRUTH...LIES, LIES, LIES
You knew I was here and you stayed away
I've been here alone, learning games I'll never play
You've found you're way back for the treasures within
But now you have to face your sin

You'll never leave now, nowhere to run
Opened up your heart and its just begun
Cry the tears that were always there
Its the price you pay for the gifts in here
And the tears flow now, as I write these words
Finding my gift has brought with it this curse
To feel what has been pushed down so deep
And fear the dark and floorboard creaks



Nick Romano