A Poem: Echoes

Echoes...
All I hear are echoes...
The past, ever present
Presenting the future with the task
Of masking the grotesque face of pain
Dotted with warts of regret and shame,
Fame is but a vail,
A ploy used to confuse but to no avail,
This face stares me down
Despite efforts to rid myself of it.
It speaks, turning memories into cacophonies,
Echoing my past through my present...
Echoes...
All I hear are echoes...
They follow me,
Each echo a shovel
Digging through my current happiness
For past sadness; in the madness,
Repressed emotions
Undulate like waves in oceans
Creating highs and lows,
Remembering the "Hi's" and "No's"
Telling that ugly face 'bye' and 'go'
But it won't listen...
It cannot hear...
It can only elicit sounds
That go beyond all implicit bounds,
Permeating the present, no pressing pause
Bleeding away the happiness using sorrow as gauze
Unscrupulously pointing out past flaws
This face has just cause:
Speaking to your present,
Looking to your future
It may open wounds, but only so thought can be the suture
Yet it can be grotesque,
If that's the path you once chose
If Karma is a bitch, she is that face
And will make sure you rue your ways, using Echoes.

-A. Lewis