Congratulations

The recognition is distant,

yet I can promise I am reaching.

Awareness of a lack of faults that I claimed ownership for,

though never being involved.

---

It’s a span measured in years,

the rings on skin the marks of age

and brushes against the monsters in mirrors,

tiptoeing specters in the hallways

with cold fingers exploiting insecurity.

---

It’s a span still to be finalized,

though it’s in the process I find the strange truth

that the hatred I’ve felt was never of me,

but a construct of mine.

It’s in the process I find

there was love, after all.

( ❤ Mitch)