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Strings

A heart that’s filled with bitter things
Is pulled and tugged by puppet strings
By subtle fingers‘ lift it sways
By fancy of another’s ways
Its legs dancing all the faster,
Governed by some callous master
Who slumps its head so eyes drop down
Plunged deep into its rage to drown
Now missing what its life could be:
Forgiveness that could make it free

But all at once it lifts its eyes
To see outside the crippling lies
To see the world in all its length
And walk within its feeble strength
It lifts its arm and spies the cord
Remembering unforgiveness stored
Quick down again it looks to find
Its legs led by some other’s mind
So legs that though before hung slack
Now activate to take life back

The other arm now moves to shear
The strings that kept it in its fear
Its bonds in one synchronic drop
Unfetter what it once would stop
The master, too, dispersed from view,
To let it rule itself anew
This frame that bore a gaping hole
It finds is filled again with soul
It walks, then runs, this heart unbound
Then learns that life in love is found.

While bitterness impounds the heart
Forgiveness forms creative art.

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