Making friends with shadows [autistic poetry]

Perhaps part of my cocooning that I had mentioned in my last post has to do with exploring darkness.  Maybe it has to do with utilizing some of the pent-up creative energy that my brain can’t seem to streamline into something more outwardly productive.  I have felt unfocused, perpetually drained.  Although this sounds bad, I’m not sure it is; there’s a time for everything, of course, and resting is no exception.  But I’m ready to feel like wanting it to come to an end.  🙂

My creative tree sprouted one fruiting body that seems to reflect the pervasive theme mentioned above.  It does indeed take us to dark places, where strength and weakness, light and dark, courage and fear, temptation and righteousness (whatever they are), of resilience and vulnerability, of defeat and transcendence, all duke it out on in sections of big battlefields, often overlapping.  And although I speak in both first and second person, assuredly I’m speaking in terms of myself the whole time (which tells you how fragmented my brain can get at times).

This came to me while listening to Amy Stroup’s gentle and haunting “In The Shadows” (link to YouTube video; I’m not sure if there are ads/adverts on there, since I’m running an adblocker; I apologize if there are!)  It’s a beautiful, simple song; its power lies in its simplicity.  It’s exactly the type of song that often inspires me; from a life standpoint (not a mental illness standpoint), I’m facing demons at this time, trying to figure out which end is up and what’s real.  This is a murky blend of the theoretical and the actual…

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“Making Friends With Shadows”

Standing on the corner
Echoing what you’ve been told
The power’s in the weakness
And it’s starting to unfold
Listen for the distance
Silence ringing through
Tentacles of darkness
Reaching out for you

Something in the shadows
Whispers
Something around the corner
Calling your name

Cursed path lying before you
Charted before you were born
Peppered with land mines
And magnetic thorns
Gotta flex your muscle
Show the world your strength
Walk the miles of highway
The better the greater the length

Just avoid the shadows
When they whisper
Peer around the corners
Before they call your name

Standing on the mountain
Gazing at all there is to see
Armed with the final knowledge
Left only with who all you’ve come to be
And now you’ve got your cross bow
But you haven’t earned the sword
Or any of its jewels for the hilt
Or the secrets of the word

Because you met up with the shadows
When they whispered
You dipped around the corner
When they called your name

Shackled in the dungeon
Every thought fleeing from your mind
Structures take a tumble
Dissolving constructs of time
Having tasted the forbidden fruit
What does that even mean?
Tempted by the dark side
You must know soiled to know clean

Making friends with shadows
Because they whispered
Hiding in the corners
Because at least here they know my name

Shedding all my weakness
Don’t let it fill my head
Living by someone else’s plan
Is one way to live like the dead
Getting out my own map
Blasting my own road
Stepping in and out of darkness
Atoning for all I owe

Leaving the comfort of my shadows
Even though they whisper
Emerging from the corner
And claiming my name

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Written 07-06-2018 @ 1242

Yes, this details a journey of self-discovery and all of the internal battles that have come with it.  And yes, the ending is ultimately a positive one, a tale of transcendence through daring to Go There and confront dim corners and malevolent demons.  It is indeed a story of jaded victory/triumph.  🙂

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(Image Credit: HGJ Art on DeviantArt)

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