Intro by Rebekah Few;
If you have ever been on a personal transition its often hard to make sense of it all. Putting things in to the spoken word can be hard so getting it down on paper can make things easier. Below Hilary uses poetry to convey a surreal moment in her life, in next weeks blog we I'll be exploring how the written word can help you do you.
To sum this up- the spoken word.
Written in the night when I couldn’t sleep not just due to the claustrophobic mosquito net around my princess like bed, which a sweet young daughter of a family in the Cambodian countryside, had lent me. Another literal example of a travellers escape where there is still a restlessness in the heart.
This poem was inspired by someone who prayed over me and saw a ‘black gate' - I wanted to find out what that meant for me. The Black Gate is a perfect metaphor for the trapped feeling and need for escape we experience when dealing with reality.
I wrote my real fears and then ended in a psalm type way of hope - where I believed I would feel the freedom I am looking for. Wonder can feel like lust, initially striking and addictive, but fading to leave you with a lost feeling, desperate to find the high again.
However there is hope; I believe freedom comes when we find the truth to our fear and in turn we respond differently. Following on from my experience I want to starve my personal demon of false escape and then no longer will it have a place. Hopefully I will see that it’s not even there when I have focused on the truth of trust, even if I’ve never felt like I’ve seen it fully.
Black gate:
Trapped in black gate
Trapped in this mind a space not so kind.
Full of wonder that doesn’t stop, feels like bondage
A heart so hopeful and dreaming
Yet it’s got a blockage
A black gate
Open but not promising as it’s like I’m queuing for the next escape wait wait wait !!!!
I can get through it myself but that doesn’t work anymore
Every time I try and open that gate it starts to rust
My mind gathers more pieces of dust,
It’s bolted up
No longer does passing this gate fill my cup
Feel trapped in this space It’s suffocating
My once colour in life is tainting
Lord break this gate down or make it white at least.
This land no longer expands my mind
It restricts it, I don’t know how to think anymore.
One last time I try to open this black gate
It’s too late, I no longer can
My heart races I can no longer escape. I’m trapped in this mundane waiting game
Having to deal with my pain
In a land I no longer like
Having to face reality
Things ending
Things repeating
Others can go
I have to stay
Pay my way
Stay stay stay
This demon of false escape needs to go
Giving me false hope of tomorrow
Only disappointed by yesterday’s game
what is this I don’t know.
Soaring flying my wings are still there - but are they
Finally, find what I feel is an answer
Long fulfilled dreams given to me in an instant
Scared that nothing compares
To this option of love and escape
Oh The horizon
It makes me feel free at last
But it comes with a price
Of trust
My heart jumps of a hope that may be met
But my black gate may still be there
Waiting in the far distance
Or will this black gate break down
Maybe it’s love
Trapped in my own land
Al I need is to know love to expand
To unbolt that black gate of my mind
Telling me no longer am I unkind
what you feel trapped by seemingly is fine.
Where love doesn’t end
Others go but I don’t even know.
A repeating becomes my laughter
Paying comes with my faith
Love by my side showing me reality is a safe place.
This demon no longer needs a place as I no longer escape.
Contact Hilary at @hilselbs
