These things of beauty

Today I decided to keep you

These things of beauty

And as morning light shone in

I saw how inner critic

Possessed my mind

So completely yesterday

Coming again to stay for a while

Beating me with his stick

Trying to whip my skinny arse

Into line

I know at times I lingered

So very very long

In the deep dark mess

There were days I could not bear the weight

Of a life of past trauma

That nearly buried me

Together with the loss of hope

That made reaching out

At times seem impossible

But today I finally understood

That even in the darkest of times

When knives cut in so deep to flesh

As pain and grief and sorrow

Began to seep

From the bleeding cuts

That even then the healing had begun

Though the light was hard to find

And I fought so many battles

With the ghosts inside my mind

But it was when I reached out a hand

To be kind to you

That I began to find the love

Within the things that bled

And when you understood my rage

It was then

I finally began to shed

These dark thoughts

This heavy weight of dread

And now I see

How very slowly over time

I learned to unwrap

These painful gifts

Reaching deep to find

The hidden beauty

Locked inside