My Shadow

Sometimes I try to sleep

As the light fades,

Trying to see the shapes in the dark

Not fearing the creature that lurks behind me

I know who he is, I know his name,

That is a rare case.

The world tells me he is ugly. 

So ugly, I should lock him

Behind a door, with all the dark

So that no one could look upon his terrible face

But if I do, then he will be terrible.

Humanity has forever

Tried to conquer his kind,

To control them and get rid of them

But if you lock them up and ignore them, 

They will force their way out and take over you,

And then their terrible faces will show through you and your personality. 

The world thinks that they 

Will do this anyway

If you leave them out to frolick

That they are innately evil

When they really are just angry at being locked up and disrespected. 

We are told that we should fear them.

But I do not fear him. 

I opened the locked door to his lair.

Dared to look upon his face, and shake his hand.

I cannot see him,

Even if it was light,

I could not see him.

I can see him in my mind’s eye, though

And he is beautiful.

Beautiful!

Ethereally, terrifying beautiful, 

I may be told that this is a disguise,

To entice me, to hide his horrible true face

But I know who he is. 

And he is not ugly.

My anger,

My wildness,

Recklessness,

Sensuality,

Arrogance! 

I love him. 

I am not afraid.

And as I sit here

Listening to the night air, trying to hear

A voice, of a being 

That the world fears

More than they should

He wraps his dark wings around me

And genuinely, gratefully, loves me back. 

I sleep.

Jungian Shadow Complex summed up by a poem.