At the Open Gate

I thought about you so often
I needed to see you so badly
But in the end I never got to see you again.
I called upon all the power I could summon
From my poor mortal soul
And still I never made it in time to grab you back.
Until I heard you were calling my name. You sent me a letter
From the city of Success. You said you missed me, never forgot me.
And that the city was covered in something you could not
I closed the letter, packed my bags, and started down the road to the city of Success.
I never looked up in my dreams, but I always looked ahead of me
At the failure that I was destined to encounter
At once my eyes finally leveled to the horizon.
I had tasted failure, breathed the stench of failure
Dream failure…and finally saw the failure
The pitch that rose from the scene, the dense blackness of the structure
The broken stones and halfway completed stairwells that rose from the ground
The ominous landscape that lay before me
Inspired me to sit down at the outskirts and do nothing
And that was when I saw the shining red stone.
A ruby that was nestled in the ruins. The composition was that of legend…
Could it truly be? I asked myself. The hope which was once lost?
I rapidly approached the city. As I ran the dust picked up.
Vibrations of my pounding feet rocked the unstable towers, toppling the structures of the abandoned city.
Just a little closer, I thought, just a little further…almost there!
And as the dust became unbearable, I feel down, lungs burning, at the place of the red stone.
The dust began to settle, and I could feel a change in the atmosphere. I looked up,
and behold, gorgeous alabaster palaces and an open golden gate that stood at the outskirts.
I glanced at the inscription on the archway that ushered me into my beautiful city, and it simply said this…
“True beauty carries no true waste
No vanity in building grace.
Yet every house constructed high
Won’t build Success until You try.”
And at the place of the ruby, the ruby of hope gone, the ruby of things called impossible
You stood…in all your perfection. You were just like the day you were taken from me.
And here we finally stood in the city of Success, hand in hand
Two old friends, never to be separated by the darkness of failure again.