8

poem number 8

The dark does not frighten me

It has become a place I listen the most deeply

In the folds of night, where the world

unravels her masks,

I sit still.

I have touched the edge of death

and found her not an enemy,

but a mirror.

She does not come to steal anything,

but to remind-

this breath is borrowed,

this body, a clay of chalise

briming with mystery

is temporary

And life-

oh, I have not run from her either,

Even when she burned me

Even when she bled me dry

I learned from her

while she screamed through me

I learned to mother my own becoming.

All three hvbe carved thir initials into

the bones of my being

There is nothing to fear

Not the falling

not the fire

not even the evil

I have sat with them all

and in that darkness

I found myself-

untamed,

unbroken

alive

and free

-Tea Franca