"Better a fallen rocket than never a burst of light."
~ Tom Stoppard, The Invention of Love

Tuesday, June 30, 2015

Poem: My Closet Wears Many Hats (2013)



Getting as far away as I have from the days when I wrote this poem is one of the best things I've ever done.  The road is long and it's rarely easy, but for me, it's been so worth it.  Here's to the journey, wherever you may be on it.

*          *          *

My Closet Wears Many Hats



 
Sometimes you’re my magic trick –
Now they see me, now they don’t.
I shut myself in
And spin myself around.
Cuffing my hands behind my back,
I hold my breath and tongue
As your chamber fills with water,
And then I disappear.
But you’re a secret vanishing act,
Because no one knows I’ve gone.

Sometimes you’re my stronghold.
Wrapping your walls around me,
I find refuge within;
No slight or suspicion
Can pierce my defenses
When I walk surrounded by your ramparts.
You stand ever fast
When the battering ram bears down
And I rest safe in the knowledge
That only I can fell you.

You’re the fear of whispers at my back,
My averted eyes, my fading voice.
You’re the truths I brush away
And the lies I die to tell.

I hope you’ll one day be my chrysalis,
The empty husk left behind
To show that the me who emerges
Is a brighter me
Than the me who stepped inside.

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