Off the Stage

I stand here shivering, alone  and at the brink of tears,
my flimsy defenses crumbling under all my many  fears.
I look about the world  ahead and feel so very much afraid.
I glimpse  back at ego's world and wish that I had staid.

I don't know what to do here without my heavy shield
of pretend, of illusion, of images of me that were never real.
Part of me longs to slip back into the dream state of illusion;
to put my "me" mask back on and hide somewhere in that delusion.

I long for armour. Though exhausting, painful and heavy to carry....
it seemed to   protect me from something that I could never bury
beneath the many layers of make belief ego put into my mind
in hope that truth would be something I would never find.

Yet determined to be heard, Truth called out to me in the way it always does,
 with a soft  whisper, a compelling  song, a warm and happy buzz.
But   I didn't listen, so content was I, to strut for glory upon the stage.
Lost in my role of "heroine", of "villain" and of "victim" , I ignored Life's only sage.

So  Truth  called out again,  removing from me the things I thought were "mine":
 props, applause, and the starring role by which my character was defined.
As the curtains close behind me and the costumes of dream  carried away,
I stand naked and exposed as the person, not the actor, to the light of day.

Here I am with weepy eyes and trembling limbs, looking out at all of you
who sit in chairs of judgment, watching, and  doing what people do.
And  you become my mirror.  I see my reflection in your eyes.
I am you.  You are me. There is no more need for our habit of disguise.

Suddenly I see how lost  I was, how asleep I was, for so very long
in my ego's need for your approval and its desperate need to belong.
 I put away my script and story, my  roles and my crazy thinking mind
and I step off the stage into the peace  Truth was wanting us to find.

Dale-Lyn August 2019