The woman I could have been : killing forces of society

Sometimes I weep over the woman I could have been

If I felt powerful in the world

If not forced into the role of the nice girl

Condition to behave

And be a slave

To those who really did not have much interest

In seeing into the heart of me

And then sometimes I think the ones that my family

Cast into the role of villians

Were really only struggling

Not to be captured

Inside inside its killing fields

But it was not only that

Societal conditioning too

Seemed in telling me what to do

To be ‘loved’

Made me lose the path to Self

Along with those who tried to say

That Self is all an illusion

Anyway

Is it any wonder we so often go astray

Lose our way

End up in the deep dark woods

Crying over all of the scars?

And yet even there

In the mists

Shadows of our fuller selves dance

Around like maniacs

Sometimes they come towards my heart

Asking again,

To be allowed a path in

To become again, a part of me

There was the woman I wished to be

And I am growing old

So sad to see

But then if I give a voice to this reality

Won’t they just sideline me

For being too negative

Living in unreality?

Who really cares anyway?

For in the end

I only have my voice

I only have my truth

My tears

My fears

My longing

My laughter

My sorrow

And my Self

Along with a rising hope

And sometimes after the darkest of times

Does this hidden joy and knowing

Steal into my heart

Slamming doors

As true essence and desire lights a spark

That turns into a fire

And then I join that crazy dance

And try my flipping best

To unite myself with the realer truer parts

Of self

They made me feel so deeply ashamed of

It was not me in the end

Who was wrong

No it was just

The killing forces and voices of society

That I took inside of me

Thinking they spoke the truth

When all they ever really did

Was try to shut the door on the fire

All they really ever did

Was lie