I find a blank, empty slate to write my confessions.

But now that I have entered this state of confession,
I know not what to confess.
My mind goes blank as the page,
And I stare, unthinking, unremembering, into the abyss before me.
This page contains a story that yearns to be written.
I lift my pen and prepare.

My mind unravels before me.
I see the palace of my thoughts, as transparent as ever it has been.
Ideas whizz by inside, busily to and fro.
They are seeing to the upkeep of my mind palace,
Which palace extends out to the horizon, on towards infinity as I draw near.

It is full of elaborate murals and magnificent photographs.
In one room there is a pipe organ, bellowing a tune that I cannot quite make out.
If only I had the right spark, the proper stimuli, perhaps I would remember.

My senses go mute as in a dream,
And I know my way around not by sight nor scent nor sound nor touch,
But by memory.

The walls become solid as I walk on.
I can no longer see ahead.
The next rooms await me only as distant memories.

I stand, now, before a wrought iron gate,
A portcullis donned with rust of all shades.
It looks at me and knows what I have come here to do.
I look at it and know that it knows.

A screech of cold metal against colder stone,
Resounding off the walls as the gate begins to rattle,
A din that seems never to end.

I look through the crossed beams and see,
Small and minute in the center of the vast courtyard beyond,
A strangely familiar object.

But that is not important as the portcullis moves, faster now, sensing my urgency.
Yes, urgent it is, the task which must be completed.
The portcullis gapes at me, astonished at what is about to be done,
And I walk through into the gardens beyond.



Vines twist up to meet me, blocking my view and my path, but I brush them aside.
The trees lean away from me in apprehension,
But I am determined, and pay them no mind.

I am nearly halfway there.

The ground before me begins to slope.
I am climbing now,
First a hill,
Then a mountain,
Now a sheer rock face to reach my destination.
Thick fog obscures my vision and I can no longer see the top as I continue to climb.
I reach the top of the cliff.

I am nearly halfway there.

I come to a canyon, deep and wide.
A torrent rages at the bottom, lashing against sharp, deadly rocks.
I spread my wings as the wind catches them, and begin to fly.
The wind storms about me, threatening to blow me off course,
To dash me against those sharp rocks,
But I forge onward.
The wind is a tornado around me now, throwing my body this way and that.
It flings me to the ground with fear, as one might fling a poisonous spider.
I get up and brush the dirt off my broken wings, content to walk.

I am nearly there.

It is within my sight now,
Delicate as ever, as I, battered and sodden as rain begins to fall,
Reach out to grab it, to hold up my prize.

I am there now.

I hold the thing in my hands.
The palace knows it has lost; it yields me the key and I twist it in the lock.

Hello, my old friend.
What have I forgotten?
I locked you away once, when I was afraid,
But now I am ready.



I open the box and look inside.