Hidden Darkness

Do you stand before the mirror hardly glancing at your image?

Afraid you might see what you do not want to see within its depths?

Can you look beyond the visage reflected there as you stand and imagine

Something deeper, something more substantial and not completely bereft?

Or have you lost all recognition of what you see and can only glance away,

Recoiling at the thoughts and memories that flood your heart and mind?

Can you not look yourself in the eye to see well beyond the flesh,

To know eventually you must reap what’s been sown and pay in kind?

From your heart screams the howl of something deep therein,

A plea for help to reach beyond the encroaching fear that will strike.

The darkness that looms lingeringly wherever you seem to move

Until you know that nothing will work before you make all things right.

For deeply planted in your heart and even more so in your soul

You’ve been taught that life is to be lived completely devoid of wrong.

You fight against yourself only to lose at times it seems, and still,

The will is there despite the disgust you feel that pulls at you so strong.

You must search deep within – more deeply than you’ve ever known

Until you find the paths of life, the righteous goodness and hope

That you know have never forsaken you despite the roads you’ve traveled.

Look closely, reach carefully until you can gain only from the fire stoked.

A new day will dawn, your spirits will be renewed and refreshed

Until you are merely a skeletal frame of the image you once did see.

A strength and wisdom will encompass to enable you to look upon the visage

Knowing that for this time and from henceforth evermore, you are free.