His Darkness is My Light

Born out of wedlock, a child of the streets, the sisters took me in to nurture and bequeath their divine formula. I was a willing novice, grateful for their care. Oh, I believed in the Word, the Truth, committed my life to selflessness, counting my rosaries on stone floors, a paper doll in a cardboard room.

Why can’t I see the light in all this gloom? A key turns in the lock. I hear the creak of floorboards, — a shadow moves suddenly from the wall and joins my own. He materializes whispering my name. Ever so gently he folds me in his cloak as his lips find my neck.

I hear them talking on the street, “Look at her face, see how she changed? Yes! Her brown eyes, bright with innocence have turned dark as pitch. And see, where there once were tears are fresh tattoos — emblems of her Master, inked into her flesh. Scandalous, the way she flaunts her body!” Let them talk, let them wonder! I don’t care.

I know the truth now, the truth that the sisters would never condone –his darkness is my light; I fly close beside him. We search out the sidewalk junkies, the castaways, the homeless victims, too proud for Salvation. We offer them comfort, freedom from this mortal life of hunger and pain in exchange for their souls, an offer they seldom refuse.

∼ Marge Simon