The Spiraling Stairwell Poem by Yiling Ding

Someone get me out of this spiraling stairwell
Up or down I can't see the light
Everywhere there's nothing but
continuing steps
Life is not a sentence
There are no rules and no full-stops
It is spreading ever infinitely
Into the future and the past
So far away I cannot reach or climb
nor sink nor find
The past is a clouded mass beneath me
But I don't remember where it began
When did this journey start and
when did the easy road
turn into this
this
exhausting
exhausting journey where
there is no goal and there is no hope
and the journey is all that it is?

Take me back to the beginning
where I was blind and brought along
and guided into everything
Before the steel gates breathed
and pulled me into their world

Where am I?
Where is this?
Where am I going?
Who am I?
Why? Why? Why?

I want to scream but all I hear is
the hollow echo of my remnant voice
emptying
emptying
emptying my heart until it's no more
The fear is resonating, expanding, engulfing
The darkness is frightening, frightening, frightening
Wailing, crying, dying

I close my eyes and walk forwards
Pretending I'm back on the easy road
Where one step leads to the next and to the next
And life is a guided tour

I always wake up from the dream to see the nightmare