Kiss the Dark by Matthew Donovan
Irony’s not what this is. Poetic injustice, maybe.
There’s evil in me. In everyone. Even the best of us are part shadow.
It’s not something to be removed from the basket, but the ribs of the basket itself.
Some believe their dark has gone. Or worse, that it was never there.
An unearned confidence in one’s purity.
But it WAS there. And is. And will be.
What to do?
Illuminate the evil. Deal with it. Know it.
Own it. Overcome it. It can be kept in check, but never killed.
Because the downside to human morality
is the unlit corner of the soul that renders such morality necessary.
You are the impulse to do evil,
And you are the values fighting for evil’s destruction.
All of it is you. All of it is me.
We’re each Baby Hitler in the hypothetical.
Worse than the compulsion to mass destruction
Is believing there’s no such compulsion in you.
To be unaware of its presence is to be ignorant to its effect.
Why solve problems you don’t know are there?
Why fix what you don’t believe to be failing?
But it is. It’s failing you as long as it’s ignored.
Just remember…
There are no demons, only human weakness.
There are no saints, only overcomers.
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