The more I sit, the more I think,
and those dark spaces between words,
become the center of my thoughts,
how they plague me,
with their ill-intent,
their aged, outmoded reasoning,
like echoes of time long passed,
they fill my heart with dread,
flashing glimpses of pain,
fragments of rushing anxiety,
until I am flooded with panic,
and my body is dense and laden,
with troubled and debilitating thoughts.

The chains are binding, irrefutable,
and the weakness of response unavoidable,
but I must strive to unburden myself,
look beyond this mental plague,
this insidious weight of deception,
and drag myself back to unencumbered thought,
where words stay true and free,
and I can see the present in colors,
not drowning in the gloom of grey,
so I stand, chains clinking, and take that step,
breath the air and let it saturate my mind,
clear this muddled head,
and find the presence of this moment.

This black dog is forever present,
sitting by my side,
ready to capture those spaces,
those paths of journeys gone,
imbuing my mind with memories lost,
and peering into that darkness,
looking for form and substance,
and following them to the pain of their reality,
when all I should do is reject them,
focus on the day, the moment,
and let words be paths to freedom,
locked in the light of now,
my salvation of thought.