Pyramid of Rebirth

A/N: A riddle. Guesses welcome.

When time won't move,
you'll wish to start again,
like a freezeframe
breaking into movement,
or returning to the rich melody of the dance.
When you first put pen to paper,
you think the ink will flow forever,
but it's hardest to pick it up the second time.

You think the shadows in your past
have been sworn into obscurity,
but while the pen has been getting heavier,
the cigarettes are lighter in your hands.

And all these ink-dripping words
and all this tar-laden smoke
collects.
And before you know it,
the emphysema has you by the shoulders
and your heart stutters like a skipping tape.
and it beats

and skips
____and it's hard
to breathe.
__You can hear it
______in your throat
___and the world
__is going
black.

Then your eyes open-- it's too bright--
and everything's clean,
but you can still feel the filth
from all those words and all that smoke
congealing under your skin.
And it feels nothing like it's supposed to,
nothing like the music that sprang back to life.
The air is too clean, too sharp;
It's fracturing in your lungs.
You feel sick.
And all you want is a cigarette.

You lay back in the bed
and listen to the machines around you,
tones and chirps
almost soporific in their regularity,
and for one heavy second--
the world breathes in,
and all the noise has
crescendoed
into silence.

And like the sun that dies each day
to rise anew,
and smile upon the golden-topped pyramid
that you've worked so hard to scale,
you will be dragged down,
back to the bottom with the dirt and dust,
to rise again.

You are a child of life,
of ends and their inevitable beginnings,
of the eternal push of time,
and you fall victim
to this most of all.