“Fool”

I wander through a garden

Tall and green and dripping with the dew

The twisting path, the hidden

The way I thought I knew

Petals, velvetly imbue

A facile façade of innocence

But the thorny branch is true

The Judas kiss equivalence

The truth I never knew

The Pathos of pretense

I was fooled through and through

Mired in the dense

Brush, I construe

The twisted path is lost

I fight to make it through

The symbols I have crossed

The signs were always there

The realization overdue

A switchback won’t repair

A road I never knew

I reconnect and reassess

The lies and the true

The despair that I suppress

Is the path I make anew

Through a barren garden

Trimmed a bit too low

I walk along disheartened

For the beauty I forego

–Christina Knowles

Photo: Barren Path | by H. Evan Miller