The Shadow Dwellers
Emerging from my teens
I had a head full
of ghosts to escape from -
inhabitants of an inner world
I kept to myself. Future life
was over there,
at the end of a train line,
a long road, the last port
of call on a ship's long voyage.
I could never get far enough
away - they always
found me hiding in some
masquerade, a clever cover
concocted to conceal -
at times I even fooled myself.
Mirrors were a bane,
they told the truth
and so I learned to look away.
A lifetime on
they are still with me but now
I know each by name.
There are days
when they draw close
and become weepy
as if seeking love,
though still afraid to leave
the refuge of my shadow.
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