Prose Poem - The Darkened Hall

Look, over there…

Shadows lurking in darkness

Moving and pulsing with unlife.

 

I feel the pull,

Sense that I am supposed to follow,

Supposed to pursue the hidden.

 

It wants me to walk down the hall,

Gloom fading to total black

Where something hopes I’ll meet my end.

 

I hear a voice echoing.

It giggles like a child

Hidden from playmates seeking.

 

I clench my fist and begin to race into the dark.

It knows I’m there, no need to creep.

It wants a confrontation, and it will get one.

 

This may be my last decision

Before I am attacked and destroyed

By forces beyond this world

Lying at the end of this hall

Waiting for me to arrive.

 

But I will give as good as I get.

If it thinks I’ll scream and cower,

It has chosen the wrong victim.

 

If it can hurt me, I can hurt it.

And it will discover that predators

Sometimes bite off more than they can chew.

 

I step into the darkness

And I smile.

This Sad Estate

This sad estate: the world today
can turn our minds to pawns and prey.

Division, hate, mistrust abound
and darkness beckons all around.

Whatever ghetto I live in:
The shape or color of my skin;
my preference of, or outward, sex;
political/religious sects;
or any way I’m not like you
can curse me (like a botched tattoo)
with labels that society
can make use of quite harmfully –
to make me scared, or hate myself,
and undermine my mental health
until anxiety and dread
infect my sore and weary head.

Within my psyche starts to build
a bleak depression, deeply chilled,
which starts consuming all I find.

Like paper cuts inside your mind,
they fester and become infected –
the negativity reflected –
until your swollen, scabrous brain
can scarcely from such thoughts refrain.

When ev’ry sense shuts up and down,
your world becomes a sickly brown,
shriveled, dead, and in decay…
no place to go (why run away?),
you sit, a heap of ruined dreams,
of rotten fruit and curdled creams.

Is this the way you want to end?
Without a goal? A hope? A friend?

If not, then make your choice to rise
from out of those deluded lies,
and soon you’ll find your peace regained,
your mind much cleaner and unstained.

Then shine your light on one another.

We’re all as one – sister and brother.