by Angela Lovell
I have seen that absolute blackness
Too greasy and inky to let in any light
Heavily covering all it touches
Muffling any emotion other than despair
Swirling around in utter hopelessness
Deafened by the hysterical weeping cackles
As I realize I’m staring at my reflection
Overcome by the obsessive need to make it stop
Thinking that piles of dirt are smothering me
Was the blessed answer to salvation
Begging for that last bit of nerve
To be the final solution and I the executioner
Without even a remnant of courage left
And too clouded to understand the blessing
That has continued to flicker in the recesses
An almost smothered flame grasping at oxygen
And finally wanting to breathe deeply
Clawing the dirt from my nostrils
Coughing the soot from my lungs
Watching that flame sputter back to life
The gooey sludge starting to melt away
As the warmth spreads across my wished-for corpse
And I begin to feel the heart beating
As the gouged bleeding wound seals
Now gasping to draw in the breath of life
The pulsing beginnings of hope
Start hardening and cracking the coating
As the old plaster starts falling away
Exposing the precious underlying wealth
And the golden light begins to ascend
Out of that festering cesspool of self doubt
As the recognition of the beloved
Envelopes and consumes every cell
And the epiphany that we are one
Washes clean the lingering residual fear
Rebirthing into the complete absolution of love
My new forgotten magnificence of truth
Strengthening my soul so I can reach
The hand of the others in that darkness
So they too can catch a glimpse
Of their sputtering flame
And we begin to breathe in unison
As the vessels too perfect for love
Our healing souls singing hallelujah
Angela Lovell was born in Germany and landed in her beloved Burque in the early 80s. She completed her schooling at UNM in Albuquerque, NM and is a local family practice Physician Assistant. She started writing poetry around 2002, but took an 8 year hiatus recently picking up the pen again in 2015.