The stairs are dark, and damp, and cold.
Diving deeply through the walls,
They groan and tremble as my feet
Pass silently throughout the halls
Of the prison of myself.

Running fingers over bars,
Dragging footsteps through the dust,
Staring blindly into cells,
I cannot enter, but I must;
To the prison of myself.

Creaking chains, rusted with pain,
Hold the prisoners of my past.
I watch them tremble, held in place,
And strain the locks that hold them fast
In the prison of myself.

Beauty sits with Hope and Love,
Chained together by a lie,
Guarded by a past of hurt,
While Joy and Confidence weep nearby
In the prison of myself.

But with a second look, as my eyes
Fall upon my broken dreams,
I can no longer find the chains,
And nothing is as what it seems
In the prison of myself.

My own hand holds the key to chains,
Locks given power by my lies;
The cells that once held all my heart
Lie empty now before my eyes
In the prison of myself.

Come, Freedom, fall upon the space
Where hopes and dreams had once laid, bound
By nonexistent chains of lies.
I once was lost, but now I’ve found
There is no prison of myself.