Make It Darker He Said
Make It Darker He Said
- by Lucy Hinton, 2012
Make it darker he said
Tell them how you’d really feel
if you met that stranger, that friend in the street
and spoke to them with the full urgency and potency and fierce and tender heart of who you really are
Informed by the hidden powers you contain, along with your capacity to be scary and angry and to make them shake inside, not just with the sweetness that cocoons your safety
Such that they might directly feel the precious enormity of what you have to say:
‘you have a choice
you can give up if you want to
you can cave in to resignation
and weariness
and the ebbing of getting old
and loss of meaning
you can be beaten back by failure
refusing to risk again
and though you may at times resist and resent the burden of belonging,
it is the sweetest gift of a burden you shall ever know
Life passes fast, and you will get to die soon enough
Yet whatever you do, whatever you do
you are part of this world
So admit to the truth
the one you tremble to admit, with trepidation and daring,
it’s not dying you’re most afraid of;
it’s not truly living’