Written February 2008. Spoken Word. Not yet performed.
Once I packed a wound away
Like a monster in a cage, and bid it stay.
In words both command and plea, I prayed,
Plunged it into the water,
Watched it sink beneath the waves.
I was relieved to see it gone, I guess,
Thought it never really left,
but only dwelt,
a tingling menace,
subdued to a corner of my consciousness.
Like a vampire, I loathed its light,
but it’s candle would never melt.
All it took was a trigger, I must reflect,
One I’d hoped I’d never meet,
But our luck is never that good, in retrospect—
Our fortune never so neat.
So there I was—now
It emerges from the depths
where it was forever to be kept,
when all at once it leapt
in giant bounds both quick and deft.
And I had two terrifying roads to travel:
To cling and suffer,
Or let go and be ashamed.
Choose wrongly,
I’d unravel—
I’d already been clinging,
so to the latter one I aimed.
I must confess
as I progressed
to confess
what I transgressed—
expiating angels of the past—
that when my fears aside were cast,
and my guilt had left my side,
no more selfish hate to fuel my pride,
I felt as if I’d died,
and lived again.
It’s funny how our little gods are more like slaves
that hold us captive to our sin.
Set them free,
and you’ll be much, much closer yourself
to being free.
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