Ashes

I decided that, for Lent this year, I would try to write a little every day.  I have no specific plans about what form that might take, or whether I'll complete much or anything of any particular projects.  Nevertheless, this Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, I have something to show for my efforts:

Ashes

All these years I’ve held within
The truths and lies that I have told,
Like ashes on my skin.

I thought so long that it was sin,
This secret, buried deep like gold
All these years, still held within.

I never knew how to begin,
So kept my spirit hard and cold,
Wore ashes on my skin

To hide myself from friends and kin,
Always waiting just to fold
All these years on hold, within.

I forgot just how it felt to win,
The weight of my imagined goals
Like ashes on my skin.

And in the silence and the din,
This sanctuary for the ensouled,
I shed the years I’ve held within
With ashes on my skin.