After reading a fellow poet’s haunting work I prepared a response to the darkness that lights her world, and once lit my own.

I have lived in darkness,

wrapped up in the blanket of its truth, smothered

hope and shut out liars

who offer to light my way with burnt

out candles of philosophy. I thought that I had insulated

myself from darkness by embracing its truth. Nothing begets nothing–

we’re all dead anyway.

Until

fear mastered my taste buds, and my

craving was bitterness.

I begged death to

swallow me whole and it did.

Soul crushing pain that I could

never quite medicate out of existence.

Death was my hope.

But there was a persistent, pesky light

that didn’t care if I trusted. The warmth of its glow stayed constant

when others faded away.  Like an inn at the end of a long

journey, it offered rest from

my aching confusion.

The lantern brought me from the woods

of my tangled shadows.

Secure in its source,

in its never changing nature

a humble truth never experienced in my boasting

darkness of doubt. It didn’t demand I believe, nor

did it exact the price of darkness. It paid in full every

debt I owed. This light didn’t scramble as I did,

to snuff out pain. It bore it. . . .willingly.

It hung in the darkness for me.

I have never experienced such light.

A state of being, rather than doing, a love

that pursues

Rather than playing hide-and-seek.

My soul caught fire as I warmed by the fire

of its glory,

I am a light to you in the darkness

Inviting warmth and freedom to the darkest souls.