TBS 7-21-2023 poem.

So deeply hidden, 
you’ve blocked my uncovering it for so long. 
Not a wall but a fortress you built around my heart.
I’ve worked and worked to improve and grow, 
only just tending the garden around your walls.

I must love better. 
Why can’t I give more? Why can’t I care more? 
Each effort trying to scale the walls of an unnamed fortress. 
So dark, unknown, 
I dare not ask to know.

Don’t come too close, 
Dear ones of mine, beware of my sting 
on approach to my hidden mystery. 
I’ll do what is expected of me, 
but fling resentment when you don’t do what I expect of you.

Yes ... finally, 
resentment offers a doorway to enter. 
Why do I do what I do? 
A mystery no more. 
A thought became a life-long belief … I am unlovable.

Where is the proof? There is none.

A castle fades in the mist. 
A new morning reveals sunshine on a thriving garden, 
smart enough to know all along, 
that no shadow loomed over it. 
It was all illusion.