Trials and Tries, Part One: The First Time

You entered my mind,
You came through my ears,
The thought of you was distant and afraid,
It spoke of times I thought had passed,
When I was young, and watched, aghast,
How, lovestruck, my whole world burned to ash,
When endless marshes and bogs and swamps,
Damped my head, my brain, my mind,
It spoke of those times at a time,
When I was no longer afraid, purely,
I was no longer afraid, knowingly,
I was no longer afraid,
But I feared receding back to fearing,
And so I feared impurely,
Without knowing I did so,
And so, the time I met you in my thoughts,
(When I was told of your beauty,
When I knew who was your brother,
And knew, too, I was his friend),
Was shallow, bitter, and cold,
As it came from an empty vessel,
A rusted wire,
A dead message,
From an empty, rusty, dying messenger;
The first time you entered my mind I was trailed,
Tempted to be an old man again,
As I tried not to fear, but I tried in vain by fearing:
Fearing the thought of fear itself.