ten ways to overcome a shadow:

i. it's not what you think.

after all, aren't shadows the ultimate decivers? things should never be what they seem.

ii. shadows aren't decivers

they aren't whisperers or spies or eyes--

they are already everywhere, don't give them more power my personifying them.

remember, you can't afford to get lost in analogies--

they follow you everywhere, they lengthen in the golden hour,

you cannot defeat them with broom or bat or even with candle,

remember.

iii. the world is only black and white when you are lost in their throes.

iv. they may thrive under the cover of clouds,

but they will never smell of petrichor,

they will never love the lightning

v. and yet

you cannot defeat them with flashes of light;

acres of fire will not keep you warm

vi. so what will?

vii. more things to remember:

light is far from the only thing that shadows lack.

they are an overused cliche, a metaphor worn so threadbare it isn't hard to unravel. 

you do not need to unravel all of them, nor should you try.

viii. they are not worth your time.

ix. find things that you can taste and touch,

relish in the dimensions of the world

take comfort in the wholeness in it.

x. you do not have to exterminate the shadows to overcome them--

they are doomed to the ground,

and you can learn to fly. 

I took inspiration from Luna-Starr and Stardust's acrostic 'hope' poems for this round. This isn't my best work, but I'm decently proud of it. I hope I'm not too late!

--

Slinking closer closer closer in the night

Hungry depths of darkness darting

At the corner of your vision

Don’t look closer, whatever you do,

Or they’ll surround you and

Whittle you away until you’re nothing but a 

Shadow just like them

Things I know 

the heart is deceitful 

above all things

and apparently hope 

has feathers and wings 

and rain is tears

that angels cry 

and fall is where summer 

goes to die 

and mud is clear 

and faith trumps fear 

and this strange globe 

all swathed in clouds 

knows to follow the sun 

without being shown

and roads have forks 

and lungs have corks

and pain has knives 

and humans it seems 

do not have nine lives 

I know these things inside of me 

I’ve got one eye 

on things unseen 

and the little surrealities

that travel in between

but there is one thing 

I do not know and although 

I’ve searched high and low 

I will not let myself give up

until I’ve decided 

what sort of person I want to be 

when I grow up. 

@The Illusionist, that's great! It has a lovely rhythm and very poetic lines!

being on a fence would hurt unless you picked a side

i. there is a little girl standing next to an ever littler boy. another boy bigger than both of them

towers over the small one. his lips are creased in a 

sneer, and his words lie uneasy with the little girl. they sound sour in her ears and she wants them to

stop.

maybe she can tell him to be quiet. 

ii. there is a teenager in a hoodie standing at a crosswalk, a red hand on the

other side of the street telling them not to go yet.

there is one car nearing the opposite stoplight, maybe crossing in a few seconds. the teen is impatient and wants to

go.

maybe they could run across quickly.

iii. and now, for their lives and their hearts and their minds, we simply want both of them to 

do the right thing.

but they are both human, and they both have chosen wrong before, and perhaps will now.

like it or not, one of these will not end the way we want.