#924 On The War Within

Within each breast a private kingdom stirs,
Where longing shapes its own uncharted law,
Where will asserts what no edict defers,
And selfhood stands on what the heart first saw.

Yet round us press the claims of kin and race,
The weight of custom and the voice of need,
The roles we’re asked to fill, the given space,
The common ground that asks our common seed.

Between these poles we live our numbered days,
Now servant, now the sovereign of our will,
Now lost in others’ roads, now our own ways,
Now bending to the world, now standing still.

This war within is life’s most sacred art —
The self made whole by what would break the heart.