The Devil’s Best Disguise

Can you lose yourself again?
Does who you are change so often,
so completely that you get left behind,
always playing catch up? Always
doing the work to rediscover the roots of discontent,
the same old wounds showing themselves
in new ways, like the devil laughing at your confusion,
the master illusionnist, a one trick pony,
counting on your innocence and need for purity
and peace to be it’s best disguise,
your only weapon a child’s persistence
strong as your childlike innocence
which somehow always manages
despite the razzle dazzel
of a world more sophisticated than your heart has ever been,
aways seems to return.

About this poem

Never write poetry after therapy.

The picture was taken at Mass MoCA. The figure in it is my son. Many years ago.

Tom