Beyond the Edge

Does anybody hear me there, in the silence,
Before my voice is forever still?
Too long have I played in this endless darkness,
Too long have I forged this armor of steel.

My strength is gone, and my dreams are ashes,
The world burned them down and scattered their flame.
Yet deep inside me, defeating my terror,
My heart keeps beating: “You’re not lost yet.”

Each morning I rise, and all seems a deception,
A stage of gray cities, alien and cold.
I stare through the mirror’s frozen reflection:
Am I still alive beneath years piled old?

My soul is heavy, with scars upon scars,
Can you hear me? I’m standing at the brink.
Yet stubbornly still, through the darkness, my eyes
Seek out the road to the home I still seek.

Day after day, I pretended before them
That I could endure, that I’d weather the storm.
But deep underneath all the wreckage of time,
Something broke down there – and died without warning.

I fought without end just to rise above the thunder,
But so worn am I that each breath tastes like death.
Perhaps I need not, beneath skies made of lead,
Be strong all the time, guarding hell with each breath?

Perhaps I have the right to shatter to pieces,
Then gather myself from the ruins again?
To wrest from the darkness the happiness buried,
Where I am my own master, my own sovereign?

Beyond this suffocating, black-hearted night
There will come a dawn where a smile will be clear.
Beyond every tear that once lashed at my eyes,
A new height of living will suddenly appear.

I stood at the edge, alone in the abyss,
But deep in the coldest, most deafening quiet,
A ray of light kindled – and all fears vanished,
And darkness withdrew from my mind, losing its might.

I stood. Step by step, on the thin, fragile ice,
Along my own road, through the smoke and the wind,
Toward where I will find hope alive in my chest,
Where once more I can be myself – and still live.

Let wounds take their time to heal, slowly, slowly;
Let my road still be far from the heights I have sought.
But I’ve made that one crucial leap forward.
I feel it. I know it. Salvation will come.

2026