Poem - You are the prisoner of yourself

You are the prisoner of yourself,

You hold the key

and you want to throw it away

To remain secure in your hell

Tried, convicted and sentenced

By yourself as prosecution,

Judge and jury

But because you hold the key

We on the other side

Of your prison walls

Who forgive and love you

Feel prisoners too

We long to see you free

Not of memory by denial

But free to be wise

As only we who have failed can be

Free to risk the tears

Of pain and grief and anger

At all that has been

Could have been

And was not

Free to risk the joy

Of all that can be

Free to laugh with your eyes

To show the raw emotion that tells

of how you have faced the edge of life

- hopelessness, fear, rage and death -

and to show that love which rages still

that won't give up

Dare then to lay hold of the key

dare to open wide the prison door

Dare to accept yourself

As we accept you.