Cries of a searching soul

my lips can hardly form
the words i dare not utter.
the thoughts swirling in my mind
are beginning to pound from my heart,
echoing against the empty walls
that chain me in.
the night is blinding my eyes,
the starts all melt together
to form a mirage of something greater.
but what is greater?
if anyone could tell the story of purpose,
i beg that one lonely soul
to scream it to the westward wind.
the wisdom that goes far beyond
the petty knowledge of
the most respected
is staring me in the face,
only to vanish when i reach
into the darkness
and realize nothing's there.
for nothing will ever exist
in the emptiness of even
the greatest accomplishments.
the wheel does not cease to spin
for the weakest nor the strongest.
if a reason exists in this hurricane of questions,
i shall be the last to grasp it,
or my fingers have long grown cold in my grip
on what i thought was reality.
but what may be truth for one
is merely a falsehood for his neighbor.
there once must have been
one ultimate goal, one grand prize.
but it has long been covered
from the sand we've thrown on top
while we build our castles
that get washed away
by the crashing waves of doubts and fear.
so we leave our backyard sandbox
to paint rainbows in the mud.
will we ever stop to wonder
why nothing changes?
could we not settle to learn
from our ancestors tears?
but we pack the hauntingly familiar photographs
into dusty boxes so we can erase them
from all memory for one more day.
and we close our eyes
and bury our heads under the blankets
til we awaken in yet another nightmare,
only to find that everything
is right where we left it.
and so it goes, on and on
til eternity is over
and we can finally breathe without choking
on the dust of our last mistake.
only then will i stop to realize
i had the answer in my fingertips the entire time,
if only i would have accepted
the facts that were not true
and chosen to change the future before it began.