Obsessed

You walk on tiptoe
You daren't breathe
You daren't hope
You daren't dream
Your thoughts are like a thousand leaves
Scattered, broken
Excited, tense

Has it come yet? Has it gone?
Has it passed without me knowing?
Has it decided to go elsewhere?
Will it come at all?

You ask and wait
You wonder and dread
You shift restlessly
Your heart feels like lead
You're not sure if you're awake or not
If the answer's came
But you think it gone

You sleep but a minute, and then you wake
You drift again to fragmented dreams
So often the intervals between wake and sleep
The two switch and mix, or so it seems

"But I heard it come!
I did! I saw!"
Then you wake
And it's not come at all
You dream again and find it's left
Forever gone
Beyond your reach

Like a passion-bird clawing at your heart
Like a passion-crow cawing in your mind
A whole chorus of mournful ghouls
Telling what could happen

You've no appetite
You nibble your bread
You stomach growls
You hear it not in your head
You wonder numbly what your forks are for
For eating, they say
Eating? What for?

How can you care for such mundanities as eating?
When it hasn't come yet, when nothing's sure
How are you expected to chew and swallow?
Your mind is filled with thoughts both sweet and hollow

You wander around
You can't see your way
Your voice is hoarse
Your hair is grey
You look wistfully at the hangman's noose
If you die
You won't have to wait

Your thoughts are filled with when it comes
Of when it goes, and when it's gone
Like a million daggers tearing through
Thoughts ripping apart your soul and mind

You sit alone
No one comes
You shiver a bit
Then sigh and moan
You'd babble but you've no energy left
Even if it came
You'd be skin and bone

It never came; that's no surprise
You knew it wouldn't since long ago
Yet still you wait, you wonder, you hope
Till you've wasted away to a pile bones

You walk on tiptoe
You daren't breathe
You daren't hope
You daren't dream
Your thoughts are like a thousand leaves
Scattered, broken
Excited, tense

Is this the end? Is this death?
You know the answer but you daren't dread
You've wasted your life to that lingering hope
As all who came before you who'd obsessed