The Ivory Towers

I

With its plain & circular white walls my tower rises into the sky,
Built when I was a child, my place of retreat, of hidden thoughts.
Other towers are more colourful, more ornate, more splendid,
And alongside these, my tower goes unnoticed, almost invisible.

Yet what others cannot see and do not understand is its secret,
For the lack in splendour deliberately masks its beauty - height.
My tower is so high that it rises up to the stars almost eternally,
Away from the other towers below, and away into my mind.

The secret of my tower is the intoxicating view from the top,
from where I see for hours around my dreams and my imagination.
While below is a vast, colourful sea which blurs into insignificance,
And far in the distance is a tower, higher than my own, but empty.

Even as a child, I knew that I wanted to share this secret place,
To reveal it to someone who could understand its complexities.
And as a child, I knew that the first to enter would be the last;
The door to my tower, my heart would be opened just once.

II

Before I met her, I had described parts of my tower to others,
And on occasions, I even almost allowed its door to be opened.
But there were doubts in my mind - it wouldn't be understood,
And so I turned away, locked the door, and waited once more.

When I did meet her, I saw something I had not seen in anyone before,
What it was I still do not know, but it made me want to know more.
So I allowed her to know me, and I described to her parts of my tower,
Things that I had never previously shared, or even wanted to share.

I knew that she would understand this place, maybe more so than me,
And as I grew to know her and to love her, I wanted her to be the one.
I yearned to ask her to enter, but did not know if she was knocking,
Because the sounds outside were obscured by the din of friendship.

What is worse? To open the door and to see a friend walking away,
Or to never open the door at all, and ignore all that might be possible.
To open the door to my heart or leave it shut; to live or not to live,
To be or not to be, that really is the question. I chose to live, to be.

III

She opened the door and she entered my mind, my thoughts, my dreams,
And we climbed, almost floated up the stairs hand in hand, heart in heart.
Sometimes she would suddenly stop and look at me, fearing what might be,
But each time I told her not to be afraid and follow her heart, to follow me.

We reached the top so quickly, and I showed her the views for hours around,
Of all my dreams and all my imagination, of all my mind and all my heart.
She wanted to see, to feel, to love, and as I had known, she understood,
And so I showed her all that I was, all that I wanted to be, all that was she.

She saw the tower in the distance, and then looked at me with all her heart,
She took my hand and pulled me from myself, flying up through the night.
And as we arrived at the empty tower, breathless with what might be,
I looked behind to see a fading tower below in the distance, now empty.

As we entered the untouched tower, all around the view began to change,
A view of our hopes, our dreams, our thoughts, and of our imaginations.
A beauty to which no words can ever do justice - indescribable,
A beauty that clouded over the immense colourful sea that lurked below.

IV

At first, the distance between us did not matter - it could not divide us,
We met up in our tower, in our place where our hearts danced together.
We existed separately in our lives, but we lived together in our dreams,
Wishing for our lives to be our dreams, and our dreams to be our lives.

But while alone distance could not break us, with time it destroyed us,
Both surrounded her in a veil of her fears, her doubts, and her realism.
When we were together in our tower, I could see the beauty so clearly,
Yet she could no longer see the vision, all that remained was her memory.

Seeing her blind, I tried to describe to her everything I could see and feel,
To help her view the beauty again, to re-open her eyes, to re-open her heart.
And while this helped her remember, her eyes and heart remained closed,
And so she left me: alone in our tower with our hopes, with our dreams.

The view remained, but without her I could no longer look at its clarity.
It was so painful to see that I had to close my heart to this place, to leave.
And as I did so, I locked the door to our tower and sent to her the key,
I could only return to this place with the key to my heart, which was she.

V

I forced myself to forget the two towers for a time, to forget my dreams,
And it worked, I lived in obscurity amidst the other towers below.
Never looking up for fear of the memories that I might see and feel,
Living in reality, living in life, loving in reality, loving in life.

I was happy, I was satisfied, I succeeded, I lived and I loved,
"Reality wasn't so bad - I could live like this for the rest of my life."
So why was I made to be the way that I am? - a hopeless romantic, a dreamer,
I tried but could never forget my hopes, my romance, my dreams, she.

And so I returned to my tower, and climbed again the stairs to my true self,
To look out once more for hours around my dreams and my imagination,
To see the beauty of the vision that I had tried to forget and conceal,
To imagine a day when I might again fly to our tower in the distance.

Our tower is now empty and even seems further away after all the years,
Yet there is still a haze that surrounds it, a fading mist of memories.
A haze that still shines so brightly across the horizon of my life,
A mist that will disappear forever if I don't keep looking, keep dreaming.

VI

Maybe this is my destiny, to keep this memory alive from my tower alone.
Maybe she too sometimes looks up and sees the haze of our tower and remembers.
Maybe we will return to the empty tower, when we can no longer return to the sea.
Maybe I will meet my love once more, when all that remains is our dreams.

Just maybe...