The Inner Child, a poem by Jennifer Copley

When I fled my troubled home, passionately immersing myself in college, career, and family, I thought I had escaped the dark shadows, the pain.  Mid-life, forced to stop pretending, to stop running so hard,  I sought professional help.  “You must,”  said the therapist, “walk over to that closet where all the shadows are hiding.  You must throw open the door and look them all in the face, or they will haunt you forever.”  In the dark recesses, I found a grieving child, one I had abandoned to those shadows.

The Inner Child

At the top of the stairs

from the dry, dark concrete

basement of my soul,

I slammed the door

Trying to shut out her pain

Which seeped, like poisonous air

Up those wooden stairs.

I abandoned her there,

This part of my self,

This keening

      grief-filled

      despairing

      part of my soul.

With busyness, duty, and do-gooding,

 I distracted myself from

      her leaden sadness,

      her crying in the night.

But on and on she wept

       for decades:  

       for attention

       for compassion

       for help 

            in climbing up 

            the wooden stairs,

For love…from me.