The Audience of One

Awaken!
Hurry now! Awaken!
The dawn is past
The noon is done
And the night is come.
We need not flee anymore
Safety is found
In the arms of the darkness
Shame is absent
In this place
Where no one pays heed
To your name
Or seeks your face.

Speak
And I will listen
Hear
And I will cry
Forgo your inhibitions
Fear not any admissions
Or deny grief
Its every place
For here
It finds relief and freedom.

Our tears
Were never so heavy
As the ones refrained from
In the heat of the day
When we found our lives so strained
And nearly done
Whence only a smile becomes you
And no soul longs
To count the cost
Of your longings.

Our words
Were never so few
Save when the sun labored
And we strove
To survive the hours
Of much ridicule
And little love.

Our faces
Never so joyous
As when a smile
Is not necessary
When our voices
Had no demands
To be melodious.

How I hate
The pretenses
Of the morning
The painting
Of smiles on faces
And false attempts
At mending broken fences
That lacked in meaning
In the first place.

Of all I despise,
Of assuming thoughts
Never justified
And words spoken
For no other reason
Than to fill another heart
With treason against one
Already so vilified,
Nothing so wants hatred
As the turning of the head
When faced in the direction
Of a benefactor who wants
Nothing less than to provide
Betterment and affection
For another life.

Quiet!
Listen but a moment!
As the silence
Fills the holes
Found wanting
In our thoughts
And reminds our torments
That though it often speaks
What no one longs to hear
When it elaborates
On the truths we’ve attacked
And defended
It will not take
What we allow not to be subtracted.

It is a race versus time
To determine the measurements
Of the weights we’ve carried
And their effects on our backs
Though they have broken
Our lives all the more.

I will not fear
Any longer
This honesty of yours or mine
For without it
Nothing worthwhile
Could ever be known or done
And no rescuer
Could tell the truth
Of the tale that is told:
Of your life and mine
Of my pain and thine
That though we are alone
Held captive by our anguish,
We are also at liberty
Among this
Audience of One.