Tuesday Poem: "Entrusted to Love"

The key is love

but you were born to a family

with too little love to go around.

To be whole is a crime

in a kingdom of cripples

so they sought to maim you

with violence and neglect.

The key is love

but you could not find the lock

to open up the house of light.

So you smashed all the windows

with the cudgel of anger

but the light and warmth fled

from the darkness you unleashed.

The key is love

but you tried to buy it with pain

and the price kept rising.

One more organisation whose best intentions

were handcuffed to a shrinking purse,

one more hostel where the bullies

made you too scared to be scared.

The key is love

but now you must seek it from strangers

whose heads get in the way of their hearts.

You drag me into your bitter self-hatred,

pushing me to lose sight of love

but it is my beacon on this quest

to discover you by discovering myself.

POET'S NOTE: For my sins, I once worked as a live-in Cottage Parent for an Anglican-run residential  home based on a semi-rural property. We looked after children who had been removed from their parents by Social Services because they had been maltreated in some way. Naturally, it was a very challenging job and our job was to try to "normalise" the children so they could be placed in Foster care or, if at all possible, returned to their families. To "normalise" the children, we just had to treat them the way their parents should have, with love and respect and kindness.