When Love Stood Still
I opened the gates of forgiveness,
and bade you enter — yet you lingered at the threshold,
counting your wounds as treasures,
and mistaking silence for peace.
I have stretched my patience like a bridge over stormed waters,
that you might cross into gentleness.
But you stood upon the shore,
and turned your face from the light that would have warmed us both.
You never sought the covenant of souls,
only the ceremony of hands.
You wore my name but not my heart;
you built a home, yet never entered it.
At every turning of our path,
you cast me aside as though love were a garment outgrown —
and I, who would have clothed you in mercy,
now stand unclothed in sorrow.
Even now, when peace would cradle you like a tired child,
you choose the shadow over the dawn —
and call it freedom.
“There is a certain inclination in human nature to keep away from all problems that might make us feel uncomfortable in our own situation. We like to leave these questions in the darkness of subconscious action, rather than see them in the light of a clear and responsible intellectual attitude.”
