Lenny, by chess venis

People always askin about you. When you'll be coming up.
I should wish I'd stayed down with you, but I don't.
Sometimes I wonder what we would have found at the tunnels end.

"We aren't lookin for gold, baby." I remember you sayin.
"We're just lookin for a way out."
I got out, Lenny. I forfeit the mission of finding the end,
And I got back to the surface again.

We were down there for years, moving toward something.
"The trick is to keep the path to the end," you would say.
"If we leave half through, we'll just end up back where we started."

Turns out, you were right about that.
When I crawled into the sunlight, - dirty, hungry, a bit beat up-,
I found myself right back here in Fairfield.

This farm holds my life, every hour, save my time with you,
Searching for the end of a tunnel called "Hope."

Hope has been a legend forever.
When life has got a person beaten down,
a friend will likely say: "well, at least you still have Hope."

So The oppressed, depressed, or just simply pressed,
will go to the edge of the tunnel. They will take a step in,
Then a step out. Flirt with it, tease the idea.
Set round and stare at it till the feeling of being uplifted embraces them.

Then they will leave the tunnel's base,
Having now come to terms with the way life is.
Keeping the pursuit of what may be found within Hope,
A journey for another day.

You walked in, Lenny. Into the darkness.
Not a second look back. - the first was to make sure I was behind.-
Walking through Hope is done in compleate darkness.
Sometimes the ground is smooth and dry, sometimes two feet full of muck.
Some places are vast, enough for echo's to mimic our breathing.

Once, the tunnel was getting so small, we could not walk side by side anymore.
You sent me through in front of you.
I needed to slide along on hand and knee, or even on my belly.
I don't know haw far. I didn't know what was ahead, or if you were stil behind.

I kept hearing the sound of water running toward me.
I was expecting to be drowned any moment.
By the time I could stand again, I was ready to drown.
I waited for you to catch up. I waited for a really long time.

"Maybe Lenny gave up, went back?" I thought.
"Maybe he drowned in the water I never encountered.
What should I do? Seems like such a waist if I give up now."

I was about to keep walking, further into the darkness,
When I heard you crawling, then standing, and walking up to me.
"I think we are through the worst" you said.

Perhaps I should have said something.
Maybe a brief explanation would have been appropriate.
I should be sorry for just leaving you, but this is not an apology letter.

I need to pass my life in the light.
I need to know you are still looking for the end of the tunnel.
I need the option of rejoining you to be something I consider everyday.