The Hermit and His Shadow.
________________________
My Shadow spoke this morning, in a
roar that (until now) I had formerly
reduced to a state of manageable
whispers, that did not eat away at
my heart one love at a time.
A man who considers himself wise
once told me that since there is
no way of successfully defeating
ones shadow, it's mostly a matter of
compromise. That one must
occasionally "give the beast it's
hour upon the stage" and allow
it to speak and be heard without
ridicule. Then (once it finds suitable
expression in the world) it will return
willfully to that home most rational
men would consider a cage.
_
My Shadow is homeless however,..
a beggar suffering from an addiction
to be known, and craved, and loved
in such a way that the World itself
becomes a substitute for that home
it never had. Thus an hour upon the
stage is like giving a drunkard a sip
of wine he craves by gallons.
No amount of praise, or attention
can fill the hungry void that is My
Shadow.
Because of this, I am a Hermit.
My Home is my prison, and My
Heart is a Wasteland of memories
from a former life when my shadow
was a newborn light singing in joy
beneath the heavenly stars.
I do not congregate with other
Souls, nor allow My Shadow to
mingle with theirs. For to do so would
ensure the destruction of what remains
of my Heart and likely be a plague upon
mankind.
Even in writing this, to an audience that
will never hear it...I feel the dreaded
fiend within me growing to Titanic heights,
drunk on primitive hungers no modern
man could understand. And so I must
make short my work, and sit in silence
beneath Heaven's Starless Void,.. until the rays of
morning light conceal the sorrows of my
bitter Heart. (which is constantly
consumed one Love at a Time.)
J.Stephen.H.
