A present for a dear friend of mine. I'm so proud of him, for all he's been through, to where he is today. So here's to you, my friend. May you only grow from here on out.

Download at the top, and the poem here for easy reading :]

Poem ⓒ Me

Gift poem to  sjfan


Once, when you were young,
you looked up at me
with tears in your eyes.
'I'm scared' you said, as the villagers
banged on the doors,
demanding entry.
You locked the door with a wall
of stone, and covered the windows
with drapes of blood and tears.
You hid in the corner,
away from light,
away from hope,
away from everything we know.
'I don't have any friends' you said,
as the banging was silent and the
darkness drank your sorrow like fine wine.
'They speak, but I'm still scared' you said.
The wind would blow the drapes aside,
and you would curl yourself away,
too afraid of the world
that shunned you, of the
people that hurt you, of the
places you knew only
as torture and shame.

Then you opened your eyes.
You weren't afraid of the people;
you were afraid of yourself.
You weren't afraid of the world;
you were afraid of the place
you had locked yourself into.
You weren't afraid of the places,
for they had freed you from captivity.
When the wind blew, you tore
the drapes apart.
When the voices of others
became louder,
you listened.
You broke down the stone
around your door,
piece by piece,
and stood taller than before.
When you stepped outside, the sunlight
bathed your skin
like a sweet perfume.
And when you walked the path less traveled,
you smiled;
because you had been freed from the prison of your own insecurities.