I WALKED THE HOLLOW STREETS OF TIME

I walked along the hollow streets of time

Looking for the answers to my pain

I wondered at the circumstances of my life

All that was or could have been

This life

This journey

So fraught with lies

Deceits and miscommunication

All that I thought I was

Was not

All that I hoped dashed upon the truth

Of lies long written on the pages

Oft repeated multiplied

You told me not the truth nor could

Would not you said

For fear

For fear of what the truth would do

To you and others

But what of me

Of my life

My journey

My Being

Held back

That which could have made me whole

Given reason

Created worth

Made some sense of bitterness and hate

Helped me understand

Your fury jealousy and pain

My childhood a dark mystery to my heart

I would not have judged you harshly

Not judged at all

Do not do so now

Times were different

You and they lived in an era

Unforgiving unrelenting false

I understand

I understand that with each passing moment

The magnitude of lying became unruly

No speaking back No peace

The lie was Yours His They

Not mine

I played a silent part

Stringed puppet

Made to dance to play a role

For your Approval Forgiveness

A keeper of secrets unknown to myself

Yet betrayed by every breath of my small life

My ignorance the greatest threat to you

A hint of some deep memory of who I am

Not whom I’m meant to be

Increases your fear Your hate

The eyes The hair A mannerism

A genetic ghost

That argues against pretence

A throw back you say when people ask

Great uncle was quite strange

Must be him

Coming through again

And I believe as others do

Out of step Not the same

Different strange unwanted

I walked in hollow time

Not knowing why

Not knowing who

Not knowing

What the crime of my existence

Why love offered in penance for unknown slights

Was met with so much hate

Your dreams died young I know that now

Buried by pride and respectability

Drained of life

In shadow land

You sort your life in pain

Yours and mine

In your mind I am to blame

I exist therefore I am

You cannot Will not see

The You in I

Nor the good of him in me

You can only see your pain

What you have lost

Your love

Your life

The choice was yours

You could have fought

For that which means so much

But then

Did time alone enrich the thoughts

The memories

Of what was lost

If I the spark of all that love

Can render so much pain

Me thinks it was a fantasy

A dream An escape

Reality was in your arms

Reality was birth

But you

You tore them from you both

And in that rift found hate

You say

The hate is of my making

I think not

Your loathing is of yourself

And I the canvas on which you paint

Your anger and your venting

But then

In one great burst of light

I saw the past long gone

Knew neither right or wrong

Exist for you and I

It very simply IS

I trust your journey’s not for me

Stood upon that corner

Of life’s streets and empty lanes

Did not turn back

I saw it now

I walked your path not mine

I looked ahead

Same road Same pain

If I continued there

To the right tho dimly lit

Another had appeared

Unknown Untried

Some faint hope drives me on

Wills me to step out

Into a future Another Me

Perhaps into the truth

I have already known

Deep down inside

The truth of who I am

And have never been

Your journeys yours

Was always yours

Those demons at your side

Not mine to fight

Nor are they me

I do not judge your choices

They made me who I am

They gave me strength to take this path

To walk there all alone

Find for myself the truth of me

That’s buried deep inside

I release me

From your journey

You from mine

I will no longer be

The reflection of your past

Mirroring your pain

Reminding you of your choices

I walk alone

But

The future lies before me

These hollow streets

Not hollow anymore

They are filled with life

With joy with hope

 With me