Guest Writer: A Poem by Aviela Groder

The Darkness

In the eerie darkness I reside

A shadowy corner is where I hide

Trapped in a cage I can not escape

Surrounded by a fear that is so great Wallowing here in my isolation

Seeking a way to be free with desperation

I cover my sorrow stricken face

Bound for certain doom

Crying out in despair

I see no means of escape anywhere

Because when I peek out from my pit of shame Only darkness whispers my name

It’s choking hold has grasped my throat

It’s poisonous air fills my lungs

Suffocating me there is nowhere to go

So I stay curled in a ball

Pressing up against the wall

Of the cage I allowed to be built

That I fear is too strong to break

For my hope is only a passing thought

And my life is the darkness’ to take

But in the darkness where I reside

A light shines into my eyes

A light so bright and so clear

It stuns me as I peer

A light that casts away the clouds

A light that finds me hiding here

But I linger in my corner

Even as the light beckons me

For it knows not of what I have done

Or of the darkness that I have become

I wait for a rejection as I feel the light searching my heart Seeing my thoughts and ways

And the evil that engulfed me for countless days

Just when I think the light will disappear

A voice shatters my walls saying

“Darkness is no longer welcome here.”

And in a moment the shadows that once surrounded me flee And I watched the fog that swallowed me leave

The cage caves leaving only a pile of pieces turned to ashes Evidence of someone I no longer have to be

I look up at the light that drove my darkness away

I see a face beaming down

A hand reaching for mine

Pulling me into two open arms

As a voice speaks over me

“My child, you are lost no more. I have brought you home.”

I look back at the dark corner that used to haunt my nights

I survey the room that bound me in chains I never tried to fight The world I created that now crumbled at my feet

And I feel sorrowful for the things I did

And shame for the life I lived

But the arms hold me tight

But I hear the voice reminding me

“You are forgiven, redeemed, and loved”

And suddenly the darkness stops calling my name

I feel clean

I turn and run through my pile of ashes

Scattering the pieces as far as the eye can see

Now knowing I am finally freed

Believing the darkness has no grip on me

For when a light shines

The darkness has to flee