Don't End, Ascend

The door changes every time but the house remains the same.
You've seen these halls, you've walked these floors,
The stories go down through your years, the base long gone in fog,
Each brick laid down by the years, each book written from memory.
Do you feel guilty just for being here?
You do, yet you still reach up for them.

Postcards held in your hands, just pulled down from the shelf.
Children laughing along the roads of 4th of July,
Soon falling on the ice.
Pulling childhood daydreams into landscapes,
Down into the dirt and grass.
Everything looks smaller than you remembered.

The ghosts are in the room now, darkening it as they reach for you.
Time to go, close the door, and lock it tight,
Knowing they'll get back in anyways and you'll let them.
Throw the bed, the chairs, yourself against the door
But you, you yourself will take those defenses down
And you'll be right back where you started.

And then some days you stumble into a room bathed in sunlight
And then the house is alive all around you
With music and sun and love and life and creation
As you lay new bricks and bind new books
And this new room blooms open for you,
Free of ghosts, full of the promise of better rooms above.

This house is yours, make it as you will.
There will be ghosts and there will be these rooms,
Rooms where you smile as you enter amid amber sunlight.
Remain and stay and fade away with this light; night is falling below.
Ascension is all that you have left, progression is how you move.
These stories are yours, build them strong and build them tall.