The Truth Will Set You Free

I spent my life in chains. Locked up in a cage this world put on me, and when offered a key, laughed in the face in the face of the freedom giver erroneously thinking it was too good to be true. I tried to free myself through my own will and I constantly found myself accomplishing nothing but the chains digging deeper into my raw flesh.

A few times someone came along and opened the door, forgetting to lock it. I opened the door quietly and stepped outside to a dark forest full of twisted branches and unearthly noises. Afraid of what I wasn’t familiar with, I quickly stepped back through the door, back to my own bondage. I soon drifted asleep, sickly comfortable in my counterfeit contentment, ignorant to the fact that paces beyond the morbid dark wood, a green valley with fields of sunflowers resided.

I awoke moments or ages later so afraid and so cold; the chains seemed to be growing heavier and sharper as the minutes rolled by. In panic, I struggled like I never struggled before. Sharp rusty metal left deep cuts I watched as the blood flowed onto the dirt beneath me. My breaths became fewer, my body convulsing. Out of my guts I let out a cry that seemed to shake the whole atmosphere. At the end of myself I stopped struggling and threw myself on the ground. Tears mixed with blood, hope seemed unattainable, freedom impossible. Blackness began to surround me, the woods growing darker and darker. My own hands began to fade away. I uttered one last bitter cry to someone, anyone.

Then something in the atmosphere changed. Like a flash of lightening I caught a glimpse of something…or someone… The image was blurry, yet so sharp. I couldn’t quite make out the details but there was brightness about him… hope. I began to cry harder, my tired voice scratchy and aching. He came back; suddenly clear like the lens on a camera focusing.

Standing before me was light itself…. vibrant love in a human form. He reached through the bars of the repressive cage. I drew back, afraid of those unknown hands, their brightness revealing the mangled state of my body. But the fear within me wasn’t the same fear that had haunted me for so long, that turned my insides into knots of dread, but a reverent awe in knowing this power far surpassed the strength of my chains.

A battle raged inside my broken spirit. Dare I trust this unknown angelic man who offered me a hand, who filled me with awe and hope, who somehow saw beyond my dirtiness and despair and showed a never dying love just by the brightness coming from his face?

Closing my eyes I drew a heavy breathe and reached out my bloody scarred hand…

(2004)