The Padded Trap (Poetry)

Now, looking back across the void, there’s just one thing I know
stuck here in life’s receding kind of cheerless afterglow
I nurse forever’s private wounds, pull close my solitude
that’s chilled by certain knowledge — the cruel way such thoughts
                                                                                        intrude

It comes to me (twice underlined) I’ve waited far too long
biding my time and harkening to far-off freedom’s song
I clung to dreams I would one day escape this padded trap
lose duty’s chains and disappear through fantasy’s bright gap

A knight would come on his white horse — transport me head to toe
and so enthralled by promises quite willingly I’d go ...
but time undid the fairytale — the traitor aged and wore
a different face and undermined what I believed before

It made a hopeless fool of me — a disillusioned soul
and it’s too late to mend or make my wasted life seem whole