Divestment

It's time...

For all the years spent trying:

Be stalwart, be calm,

Patient and kind,

Yet ever armed;

Be wise and subtle,

Be firm and yet humble;

Be genuine but know how to fake,

Bend like the green willow but never break;

Never let them see behind your game face... 

All the while knowingly lying

For the sake of conforming

To social grace.

The walls I built with reinforced steel

Turned into a prison that would not yield

Even to my hand, 

When, at last a man,

I came to understand

That in weakness there can be strength

In awkwardness, stealth

And underneath poverty, untold wealth.

When at last I opened my eyes

Finally beginning to realise

That I'd read the signs wrong

That I'd been brainwashed all along

Into thinking I needed to kill

All the while amassing debt in an unpayable bill,

Keeping me enslaved, effacing my will;

Leaving me numb, soulless and ill

But demanding more and even more still...

So I decided

It's time:

Time to let go

Time to strip off all the masks and pretense and ego

Time to look into the mirror and finally know

What's really there so I can undergo

The metamorphosis that must inevitably follow...

Time to put all I've learnt to the test.

Time to come face to face with my best.

Time to be strong and leave fear powerless.  

Time to be vulnerable, not time to hide.

And at the edge of this decision, I cried.

Shameless...