Our Other Within

We encounter our Other within again and again.
Recognizing that society places limits on our eternal freedom
We had forgotten the possibilities.
Instead our souls, long ago cloistered in cloak and stone behind volumes of words,
Accept cheap imitations of life
Striving for substitute goals and objectives
Allowing the world around us to become uniform, intelligible, mechanized, predictable.
Our Other within breaks the monotony, shatters expectation and projection, halts production,
But some of us do not survive the revelation.
Again and again we press against the limitations, recognizing and deciding
Between our image of self and our truth of self:
What demonized haunts we might evoke
What vibrant dreaming we might inspire
And how not to confuse the two.
The wretched silences and the quiet embrace all await our metamorphic end
Whether we accept our inner invitation or not
The encounter with our Other within is certain to arise.