It's a Lonely Road to Absolution

 

picture credit: http://www.deviantart.com/art/It-s-a-lonely-road-to-absolution-348348151

  

In the cold light of a cloudy morning she was ripped upright in her bed,

blinked in confusion at the seeming calm of the muted silence outside.

She shivered as her shirt slipped past her shoulder down her arm

and the cold hard truth of an ancient reality slammed through her soul.

The shivers that wracked her body did not come from the chill that crept through the glass,

but from the bruised reflections that were still stamped on her body,

the shadows that threaded through her vulnerable mind

and exposed her conscious to the heedless self-destruction she so willingly succumbed to.

She draws up her knees, folds her arms around her legs,

drops her head into her arms and yields to these visions.

...lets them slash deep into her flesh, lets them tear apart her mind

and with closed eyes relive every dark and tarnished need to which she’s surrendered.

The tirade runs on and on, choking her, but she does not blink away a memory,

does not shy away from facing all that darkness throws her way.

‘til at last it started weakening, fading slowly into gray

before a grateful stillness settles upon the disorder.

The mirror cast her reflection, she is sitting proud and tall,

a veil of dark hair hanging down her back as are yesterdays bad dreams.

She is facing towards the east, towards a light that has broken through,

bathing her face with a gracious touch on this lonely road to absolution.