Carry On

Their lives all shine like polished steel. Their efforts never miss their mark.
The truth is that they live with zeal. They know their lives cannot be dark.
They wipe their tears into their palm. They retch in shadowed secret caves.
They flinch when I disturb their calm, for next to me, they feel like knaves.
Their parents make them bathe in light and keep their secrets from the fray.
I tell them I can make their fight end in a manner like a play.
They do not think their story worth enough to people that it smarts.
They come to me, a loving berth, for "blackness cannot haunt their hearts".
And then they come without their prize. Turns out that it has been denied.
I see no hope within their eyes. Their guiding dreams have swiftly died.
Their future won't be bright enough. I make them see the downwards trend.
I say they should have been more tough. Unthinkingly, they plot their end.
They only learn when it's too late. I finally let their compass spin.
I leave them there to ponder fate, for now they see what could have been.
The truth is that I cannot harm the falsely chipper meadowlark
as long as someone breaks my charm by saying they deserve the dark.
For then that sane voice intervenes. That paltry gift will always blow
my shallow lies to smithereens, and force my might to never grow.
The shoulder given to the weak turns into stone on which they rest.
Their waking thoughts no longer bleak, they leap past me to do their best.
I hope their grown-up lives repel the pain which made them turn to me.
They'll claim that all can flee this hell, a hell they can no longer see.
They glibly jeer at how we talked. "Melodramatic thoughts begone!"
What if your progress had been blocked? What if those thoughts had carried on?
Category:Poetry
Category:Reality