Do I Pull Back the Curtain?

Do I Pull Back the Curtain?

 

I sat down to write today convinced there is nothing new left
within me to say. I am torn. Do I pull back the curtain?
Do I expose the storm that sits within my soul and never
feels the west wind and sun to blow it away?
Do I cry behind my eyes (no surprise I usually cry alone),
do I, undisguised, open the inner windows where
gloom pushes out in all directions against the
barometric pressure. How can it be that I am
so full of darkness,

I feel so hollow?

Or bloated. There was a time I believed these
were only the beginning of birth pangs,
some new creation evolving within me.
I believed it since I was seventeen,
and 60 years later I fear I must disagree.
You won’t believe the myriad of demons cast out
of me.
Or the midnight prayers, no solace, only agony.
Or the weeping in front of a trusted few,
and, once my guard was down, though the tiny crew
of friends tried to prevent it,
I was branded. I had no emotional control,
and so the caissons came rolling along.

I admitted, even from my elocutionists’ spot,
that I struggled with depression, and they believed it
upon first hearing.

But I lied. I rarely struggled. The fight made the dark
more demonic. I stood like a wrestler and went flat
to the mat at the referee’s whistle, then went to
visit the sick, keep office hours, and pass the time
playing mindless games to keep the night at bay.

Yes, I lied. They heard me say it, but never saw the
face, the terror, the desire to walk right out of town and
keep on walking until I could walk no more. I kept the
beasts inside. And if they did escape, I stalked them closely
to keep them at bay.

But I see rainbows around your head my friend.
And I’ve heard the trembling which you feel is a permanent affliction.
Do we finally give birth? Or, just as our delightful children,
does it take two souls to draw out the nativity we hoped for
all along?

Most things escape me these days. Even my words are less artful,
prosaic, plain, common and, in a word:

Sad.

But I know I would do anything to hold a mirror to your soul
until you saw the spectrum of beauty that surrounds you. And,
you,
I know now,
would hold the mirror for me.