Owning our phantoms

I struggle as hard as I can

To bring you close to me

But I am beginning to believe you are

Either phantom

Or projection

Someone my psyche summoned up

To show me a mirror of my own wounded insides

You speak of stomach pain

And of a longing to be free of a place of terror

So how are you so very different to me

It seems that for most of my life I have been struggling

To do good and to be seen

And all that has happened is that I ended up exhausted

And then

I actually woke up to the fact

That the love and attention and acceptance and affection

I was longing for

Should really come from adult me

 

Today the realisation hit me full force again

I could not hold to that

When you say I am the light

That fills your emptiness

I don’t want to believe that lie

I don`t

For I believe we can all find that light

Deep down inside

At the bottom of our buried pain and grief

And that no matter how many times others

Try to steal it from us

It was only really ever us

Who gave it up

In unreconciled longing and later willingly

As we fought against phantoms

That we believed were not ours

But were waiting here all along

In the depths of our inner shadows

To be owned

 

(Image credit : Deep Sleep by Christian Schloe)