Fighting the Darkness
By Shawna Arthurs

With the light of innocence
And the hope of blind men
We come into this place.
Daring the light to surprise us,
We are ready.
With shining faces
We grow with time,
And inevitably we change
And discover countless flaws.
Soon our hearts turn callous
Then hard-
Yet we are clueless as to the cause.
The cycle continues.
We question and wonder
And soon discover darkness and pain.
Slyly it befriends us
Until we let it consume us
And see only darkness' face.
With hollow eyes
We look in the mirror
And despise all that we see:
The pretentious smile,
The dying passion,
The agonizing complexity.

So easy it is
To turn away
And ignore what we cannot deny:
That we are frail
And fallible
Some of us, only living to die.

We are terrified
At the sight of our hearts
When we dare to face the truth.
The blinding light
Exposing the darkness
Asking, "What will you do?"

Yes, we are fallen
But not without hope.
We've been given the chance to live.
Should we take it we may hurt for awhile
But then find
Pain is not all that there is?
This shining light
Exposing our souls,
Leaves no room for darkness.
It pierces
To our very core
And chips away at the hardness.

It can destroy
Or it can save:
The choice is up to us.
We can choose to face the light
And live
Or die with a heart of darkness.

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