This Shadow of the Heart

Life is a canvas laid bare for all to see
 Man is a mirror imprinted with lock and key
 Dichotomous gates lead to dormant ways
 Where every path was split in half
 We wander 'til we fade
 Time confounds and mystifies
 Awareness cuts like a blade
 The duplicitous curse of the gifts we share
 Soon lost on wasted days
 Let senses draw blood
 Drown in their flood
 A maelstrom of sweat and cold regret
 Life's paint seeps from our veins
 Through the portals that we left
 Our shades will follow through
 Embrace the struggle
 Learn to grow with your pain
 Hope lies in the solace of a dying dream
 Beasts trapped in a corner fight fiercest of all
 Does the light not shine the brightest in the depth of night?
 Once our souls moved softly
 And tiptoed through the world
 The Atlas weight a gentle ache
 But this could not be us
 A slave to wretched nature
 A rag doll to our hearts
 To relish burden like a fool while shadows tear at our mind
 We have shaped our sorrow and became the forge
 Infernos that consumed us once have wrought a tempered flame
 But bitterness does suffocate and stone breaks all the same
 Our sculptor's soul, though marble-made
 Eclipsed by the shadow of the heart
 Beasts trapped in a corner fight the fiercest of all
 Does the light not shine the brightest in the depth of night?