The Abandoned Well
Inside every soul is an abandoned well,
It’s secrets we don’t often tell.
It’s naive waters drained away,
When our first people failed to stay.
Hopelessness and pain rot there,
Rebelliousness and ‘devil may care.’
Self-Respect can spoil to greed,
And Lonely is a rampant weed.
And over the well some build a tower,
Hiding in their darkened bower,
Pride and pain their only friends.
For them the grieving never ends.
Others face their mirror at night,
And lie to make it feel all right,
Pretending there is naught within,
No pain or darkness, shame or sin.
But what the first group cannot claim
Is an escape from guilt and shame,
And what the second won’t achieve,
Is forcing all their pain to leave.
The third group visits at days end.
The darkness is a timid friend.
And shyly, in her gaze, below,
From darkened mosses flowers grow.
And when the darkness speaks she’s still,
Listens and then comforts till
Her inner monster falls asleep,
And both each other safe they keep.
For when she might be lead astray
By toxic people who won’t stay,
The monster says, “It isn’t sin
To let a little selfish in.”
2018
It’s secrets we don’t often tell.
It’s naive waters drained away,
When our first people failed to stay.
Hopelessness and pain rot there,
Rebelliousness and ‘devil may care.’
Self-Respect can spoil to greed,
And Lonely is a rampant weed.
And over the well some build a tower,
Hiding in their darkened bower,
Pride and pain their only friends.
For them the grieving never ends.
Others face their mirror at night,
And lie to make it feel all right,
Pretending there is naught within,
No pain or darkness, shame or sin.
But what the first group cannot claim
Is an escape from guilt and shame,
And what the second won’t achieve,
Is forcing all their pain to leave.
The third group visits at days end.
The darkness is a timid friend.
And shyly, in her gaze, below,
From darkened mosses flowers grow.
And when the darkness speaks she’s still,
Listens and then comforts till
Her inner monster falls asleep,
And both each other safe they keep.
For when she might be lead astray
By toxic people who won’t stay,
The monster says, “It isn’t sin
To let a little selfish in.”
2018