The Long Witness

Silent Suffering in Solitude

Allow me a moment,

Just a touch,

A smidgen of time,

To sing a song

Of beauty,

Of pain,

Of love left to die,

Of redemption in ashes that cries.

Long ago as a child,

Left alone, abandoned in quiet,

At doors, window, on tables, chair,

Two children left behind,

Her back fading in Ford’s lights.

House unfamiliar, once orange now dark black,

Monsters hidden in corners once clean,

Till sleep claims toddlers two

On kitchen’s floor.

As a young soul maturing,

Fifteen winters passed,

Hardened where soft was meant.

Anger living in Love’s space,

Bully mentality adopted to hide fear.

Hated by peers, schools’ brutal taunts and jeers

Gave rise to despair

And a loss of things near.

No refuge in red-roofed doors nor warmth,

Nor found in churches or under pewed halls.

Then older, still strongly formed,

Set and hardened but brittle,

Strength a show guising humbled horror.

Relationships fake and frightened,

Work a mockery of truth.

In house, first wife shallow,

Love and lies as she herself denies,

The Desire of Desiree to take child in night.

Autumn gone before the season began

In Berkshire’s peaks.

Cause: hormone replacement therapy,

So lies laid bare, alone and left.

How those weeks weeped.

Work lost, as judgment of appearance found wanting.

Friends once near fled to the corners once dear,

Scattered and ground down, friction to form.

Homeless, tossed and storm-torn,

Through second puberty as first in fight,

In places where such was never done.

Worn openly without guile,

Where in hallowed halls such was not style.

Spoken as testimony in loss,

Still learning to feel without overwhelm,

To hold tears once bottled at bay.

Now at forty-five,

Changes long since settled,

Emotions understood and integrated,

Has sorrow found my halls once more

To challenge and shake my inner being

As spirit world quakes?

To try to proclaim love as weakness,

Weakness and fear forged broken fades.

Now known and fully seen,

I speak from ashes and glory,

From Savior’s presence and love,

To allow others a telling of my story,

That it might grant hope from above.

That you might take heart,

And know:

You are never alone