The War Within

I harbor an inside enemy

Full-range emotional artillery

The self-made war I wage

Between the shadow and the sage.

She knows what hurts the most,

My unwelcome host,

Kicks me when I’m down.

She knows no bounds.

She’s staked her claim and freely roams

She calls herself my home.

I know her insidious M.O. well,

My ego’s own invented hell.

The eye-roll, the snarl, the hateful stare

I know because I put her there.

To contradict, to feign, to lie,

To make me hate, to make me cry.

Made of the places where light can’t shine

When I don’t believe what’s mine is mine.

To love, to feel, to hope, to heal

The wisdom to know and to be what’s real.

This beauty can no longer hide

The need for truth cannot subside.

It sees beyond where darkness grows

It slowly speaks and surely knows

The truth of me beyond this shell

of flesh and bone, of blood and smell.

The war within is a futile hole

To fight with my undefiable soul.

I cannot break because I bend.

I will not cancer, I only mend.