Dark places in the mind

Quote Prompt: Project Write World, Oct 2009

Everyone has a talent. What is rare is the courage to follow the talent to the dark place where it leads.
- Erica Jong (Writer)

Dark places in the mind

Your words fit like bricks on a cobblestone path
but are you prepared to travel to the dark places in your mind?
Beware, there are demons in the hedges
and hedges casting shadows at your feet.
There are thorns behind the roses. 
The words of critics bite like sharpened teeth.

But let the shadows fall from the hedges,
forming boundaries to guide you
through tunnels of fear and pride. 
The thorns may cut, but have they lied? 
And if creation is light, the journey through darkness
is a necessary flight, a pain required. 

Without the winter wind, can you truly know
the warmth of sunshine on your skin? Without our shadow cast,
isn’t the sun just a dying star on fire.  Without peril, peace is merely
a quiet place to rest your head.  Tell me, without success,
can you feel the dread? Can you be rescued without losing your way? 
So I ask you now, who can write of joy without the memory of pain?

Could it be those who fear to walk on the cobblestone path
that issued from their own lips? Or those who mistake
the hedges for prisons and the darkness for the void?
They have imprisoned their spirit in a vacuum
from which no soul can thrive.

As for me, I will not fear
the darkness in my life.



SWPoet
25 Lines