Gargoyles

Gargoyles

Fears, regrets, lost hopes,

failures and smashed dreams

can chase you, chase you

in the shadows until

they catch you like a disease.

Building insidious inner demons,

they try to overwhelm you,

put blinders on your eyes,

tell you that you have

no freedom of choice,

tell you that all the world

is forsaken and made of pain.

Each time they win a battle,

they get a little stronger

If they win too many times,

they'll bind you with fear

and suffocate you with ignorance

trying to snuff your life spark out.

Each time you rise

to meet a new day,

you win the prize

of one more chance at life.

As you face the day,

with every choice you make

to believe in yourself

in spite of them, you win.

Each time you embrace them

teaching them of compassion

you win against them.

Each time you stand up to them

all or alone in the darker

alleys of your mind,

you win a battle with them.

If you win enough battles

by believing in your own magic

they'll transform

into peculiar allies---

You'll learn from them

to have even greater

empathy and compassion.

They'll become gargoyles

who protect you

with an amour of scars

that they've created,

guarding you against

any new strife you chance to face

in the long years ahead.

I've fought many of them

many times over the years

and I have many scars

because of it.

But my gargoyles have learned

respect for my spirit,

because I know in each place

they pierced me in times past,

in the white of my scars

shines the light of the sun,

and moon, and stars.

Dewey Dirks