A Painfully Beautiful Light

Postcard perfect,
like a mill town,
beautiful from a distance,
from that place where you cannot see
the abandonment,
the houses condemned to an invisible death,
no longer safe,
no longer castles, but dungeons
where lovers dare not show their true faces
for fear
that the fragile walls will fall around them,
and leave them broken,
far more broken
than the perpetually wounded state they live in
today.

Better to hide the blood.
Better to stay behind glass
like a trophy from some ancient war
long past, long lost, long endured
even when love has been ripped
from it’s roots and left to die alone
in the dark,

unaware that salvation lies,
not in secrets,
but in boldly proclaiming both the wounds
and the wounder,
by stepping into the harsh sunlight
for the brief shock
of exposure.
not of your weakness,
but your courage to expose the jailer,
be he yourself or others,
and wear your scars like jewelry,
blood red rubies and emeralds the color of half healed bruises,

to expose your fragile courage
and find company, not one or two,
but an entire world of the wounded
crawling from the rubble,
victims of wars no one sees
until the first leaves the postcard
and walks into the sunlight
and says “No more.”
and claims the color that was rightfully theirs
all along.

About this poem

I have in mind all who suffer alone, or at least thinking alone, the abused (verbally and physically), the suppressed, the depressed, the fearful, those afraid to be who and what they are. It’s a far greater clan than most of us understand.

The picture is Harpers Ferry, WV.

Tom