Shadows
I don't remember exactly when they came
I don't know why they came or where they were before they arrived
They have been here before
They are all too familiar
They have settled in comfortably around my soul
Grey, cold, ambiguous
They bring gifts of self-loathing, fear, emptiness
They are elusive, fluid, always on the prowl
They slip thru the reason and logic of my mind
Free to wreak havoc on my light
Taunting my joy, bullying what little self-worth I had lovingly, slowly, painfully patchworked together from the threads of my life.
They want to take control
Do I let go this time?
Cynthia Buell Thomas
Sun 28th Aug 2016 17:21
A very cogent subject, and well-handled. You have a real flair for language to support your ideas. Perhaps you could break the long, prose-like sentence into smaller pieces, making it more 'poetical' in structure.
Free verse can be very prosy, but always with a clear purpose to guide the eye and mind down the page with succinct thoughts. That one long line contains three or four possible breaks that will transfer well into separate lines.
If this is your very first piece, you have a lot of marvellous writing ahead of you. Be sure to navigate the joyful as well as the tortured. Or the simply pleasant, if joy seems over-reaching. There's always something lovely, as well as fearful, to activate the writing spirit.