Opera House Phantoms

          Lurking, whispering, doing their best to distract and seduce...  Self-pity...  Resentment...  Envy... Others, in other masks and guises...  They all have pitiable reasons for their existence and their tragic twistings of truth and light, but we do not dare give ourselves over to them, no matter that we understand and weep with them sometimes, and wish with all our hearts to heal them... 
          What does it take to heal them?  They would say, "Give me what I ask for and I'll be at peace," but to give them what they want is to make still bigger monsters of them, validating that their distortions are true.
        It is illusion that they are stronger than anyone else: they are crippled, and would cripple us if we allow them. They do, as long as they live in our cellars and attics and secret passageways.  But how to bring them into light?  How to make room for them at the table, and by the cozy fireside? 
          Maybe the answer is to just take them by the hand, accept that they are part of our households, embrace them and lead them to the table, to the fireside.  To not buy into their tragedy and drama, but just love them as parts of our own whole selves, until they work out for themselves that they have no need to fear, because we're there beside them...


copyright 2005  by CL Redding