(written July 29,2018)

Every single wound has a story to tell

Tell me your wounds' stories

Not all wounds are visible and

The most difficult wounds to heal are intangible

Tell me your wounds' stories

Tell me how you've hidden and tucked them aside

Tell me how you pretend they do not exist

Tell me how you carry your wounds,

Feed them

Lie to them

Worship them

Tell me how they define who you are

I sit here on the ledge of light in the dark

Tell me how your neglected wounds beg for touch

Beg for forgiveness

Ripened and rotten your wounds shout without sound.

Can't you hear them? Can't you feel them? Sense them in anyway,

shape or form?

Knotted and tense, so gradual they grow

One day you wake as a stiff block of ice

You realize the imprint, shadow, or mark it made while you were off

chasing demons.

I stand here on the ledge of light in the dark

An equal opportunity participant of both worlds

Never fully planting a foot in one or the other

Like scarecrows if they were white, they'd illuminate the night

Like the moon as it is, in full in the star-filled sky

I walk here on the ledge of light in the dark

And that's how you see me

That's how you of dark and you of light

Tug at my heart despite what is right

Unlike a caged bird, I won't be trapped

As I listen to your wounds' stories

Neither held down nor drowned by them

A perceptual observation of wounds

Bloodied and bruised, tortured and abused by the dark

Flattered and stroked, purified and soothed by the light

I sit here on the ledge of light in the dark

To hold you

To hold your wounds and the stories they tell.