This shadow warfare is elusive,
for when I raise my hand to strike,
I make another shadow

I chase them inward
down all the corridors
where more and more of them have hidden —
they lay blame in sprawling overlapping patterns
over me, my circumstances, and the entities
identified as other

If I turn on them with anger or with loathing,
I’ve embodied their dark quality
and they win,
so I continue inward
till I find the only tool of victory,
inward to my grasp of endless love.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 5, 2017