If I love, what am I, but shadow and flame,
A mirror that flickers, that calls my name?
Does love remake me, or unveil what’s been,
The light that’s hidden, or the darkness within?

In the soil, I kneel, where thorns entwine,
The earth beneath me, both cruel and divine.
I crawl through the dirt, stained by the fight,
Yet still I rise toward love’s steady light.

What is real, must I remember it all—
The good, the evil, the rise, and the fall?
To uncover truth is to bear its weight,
The joy and the sorrow that time won’t abate.

The hands that I’ve helped, the wounds I have known,
The shadows of others have marked my own.
For every soul that gave, and each that took,
I am both victim and thief in this book.

Pulling at thorns, the pain won’t release,
Love persists, though suffering won’t cease.
Perhaps I am someone else—someone changed,
Yet you, like the sky, remain unrestrained.

In the light and shadows of those I recall,
I gave them everything, but lost it all.
And still, I seek redemption, not in the past,
But in the love that endures, that might last.

So, I’ll love all, in spite of the pain,
For in love’s embrace, I’ll find myself again.
Through the struggle, the shadows, the wounds, the fall,
I’ll rise, like the dawn, and love will remain through all.

:: 09.17.2024 ::