The Path I've Stumbled Upon

It has been quite a while since I've last written here, so here's a short narration of some of my current restless thoughts, hopeful it will be the beginning of my return to writing.

How I yearn to be free. But how can one be free from binds crafted by their own hands?

I have been lost, wandering through reality in a fog of uncertainty and confusion, dragging the bindings of my doing behind me; each clink of the infernal metals growing louder as I tire from wearing them, losing any strength I may have had to rid myself of the shackles. Stumbling towards the shadows of others I think might be around me with the only true familiar face to be found amidst the haze being my own. 

But even that face is not the one I see as I peer into the mirror of the still, grey puddles formed from the steady rains. "No," I tell to myself "this is not the face I know, it is confused, insecure, tired. It has been deformed from the erosion of the elements. It's once crisp and beautiful features have been dulled and distorted by the passage of an unknowable amount of time. Seconds? Hours? Days? Years? A detail that matters not, the sculpture is unrecognisable even if it were to reunite with it's expired creator who chiseled the work from the blank slab of stone."

What has happened that this, this mutation has occurred to me? Have I simply strayed from my path? But how could this be? I don't even remember any forks in the road, I've simply been walking on, feeling more and more lost as I carry myself through a path with no alterations. 

Where was I even going? Where did this long path lead? I can't even remember anymore. Did I ever know? Did I just blindly begin walking this pathway with hopes of seeing rays from the sun through the cracks in the ash of the bridges and shelters I had burnt? Was I seeking betterment? Was I seeking happiness? What was it? what did I come here for?

I know deep down there is no longer any point in asking questions such as these. Yet they remain, like murders of crows nestled along my way, cackling to me as I pass by, deafening me with their sinister symphonies as they play along with the clinks of the shackles and chains. Taunting me. Teasing me. Torturing me.

I can never turn back, the path behind me is lost to the encroaching void, and all I can do is continue forwards, dragging these binds with me in the hope I can see just one glimpse of the warmth of sun before the chains trail far enough behind that the void will grab hold.