Tightrope

I was given a sliver of happiness.

It oddly felt like love.

I questioned its authenticity in such a mad, bad world.

This can’t be what I’m supposed to feel, I cried

For the reels have told me otherwise.

I turned away and allowed a

cloak of grief and outrage

To be draped across my weary shoulders.

Its heavy darkness was my armor; indignation my dagger. 

Its tapestry of anger, my shield from unspoken sadness. 

I was given a tightrope of hope.

It oddly felt like love.

I cautiously placed one foot in front of the other 

On this thin wire of the possible.

I swayed in the countercurrent of fury

That was to my left and to my right.

My cloak of indignation taunted me and beckoned me to stop

And yet amidst the postulating and the pontificating, 

The siren cries of destruction and despair,

I found something that felt like courage.  

And stepped out of my cloak of turbulance pressing on towards tomorrow.