Shining Armour

 The Knight's Shining Armour

Battle weary, broken and bruised,

 beneath this shield that you see,

I peer through the armour,

that constricts and restricts,

the blood flow to my heart.

Yet the armour shines,

so important to keep it shining,

reflecting your perfect image back to you.

You expect this iron casing,

to echo each  practiced expression 

of  your pain,

to reveal to you 

your  selected sorrows 

and photoshopped  glimpses of your  beauty,

so you can see your “self” clearly.

You want this outer layer, this “me”  

to show you that it feels what you feel,

that it understands that which lies

so precariously between

the flimsy shield of your own armour

and the deep bleeding tissue of your being.

I am to see through the metal you wear,

with my Xray vision,

while I, with a surgeon’s precision,

 dare not pierce the surface,

of your tender flesh

with the beams of my magical radiation,

causing even a drop of blood

or an ounce of pain

to make its way through to you.

Then I am to reveal, in perfect detail,

on my own shining surface,

the mystery of what I pretend to have seen,

with  my intimate dissection

of your still hidden Self.

What glistens from my surface then

fills in the cracks and holes of your armour,

helps to create another

noisy  barrier of  underlying protection,

 over the layer of your vulnerable tissue

so nothing tucked away beneath,

can come through.

It is of utmost importance,

that nothing tucked away beneath

come through.

 

My role as your special person,

astride my restless steed,

is to gallantly build and protect

your defensive surface,

to protect the underlying barrier,

and to keep the blood flow

of the real you from emerging,

while my own armour creaks and strains

with the rust of its neglect,

 a rust I must keep forever  hidden

beneath the shine

of the outer surface.

 

If I falter in my mission,

I am painfully aware,

your well sharpened sword,

knowing instinctively

where even the best armour opens,

will find its way through the metal,

through the barrier of chain mail,

through my hidden flesh

and into my constricted heart.  

The long- ago written rules

of love and war remind us,

that this is only fair.

 

So heavy is this armour,

that we have learned,

through the devoted teachings

of the human mind,

to stare at each other behind.

How blinding and misleading

is the reflection it gives back to the world.

So broken am I beneath it.

I feel the blood oozing

through my rusting mail,

pooling in the space between it

and the metal casing that you see,

making its way  through holes

the hungry rust has eaten through.

You will see it soon…

First in trickles, then in gushes,

painting my armour red with

my much too long stuffed reality,

dimming the shine of your reflection

with all I stuffed away,

in order to be

your knight in shining armour.

My heart wants to beat 

without constraint,

to push the Life fluid through my vessels

with each laborious contraction,

and into the tissue

that longs to be exposed. 

You may be devastated by the naked flesh

that emerges from my opening,

But I,

who I really am

and who I have always been,

like  a bloody infant emerging  

from a cold, metal womb,

will finally be free.

If you look close enough at that

which which was once

 hidden so cleverly

beneath the surface reflection

I wore,

my love, 

you too will see your Self.

And no longer will the services of 

a Knight's armour be required.

 

©Dale-Lynn, February 2023

Brought to mind these quotes from ACIM on the dangers of special relationships.  There is no danger in love...it is everything...but when we look to others to reflect love back to us(as if it can be found "out there", when it is inherently "in here"), to protect us from our own buried samskaras, or to  to keep us from feeling pain...then there is a problem with love. Most special relationships are simply modes of defense and attack. 

Specialness is the  great dictator of the wrong decisions. Here is the grand illusion of what you are and what your brother is...Specialness must be defended. Chapter 24 I :5:1-4

Specialness is the seal of treachery upon the gift of love.ACIM Chapter 24 II:12:1

Anyway, what do I know? 

All is well.