My Poem ‘Dark Characters’

We love something with a history,
we adore someone who has a story-
and, sometimes, the more checkered the history,
and the more complicated the story,
the more that they garner the most attention,
and stir the greater furore.

People talk about and remember the things and the people
that make them think and feel something-
it could be the cost of life of a massacre;
or the remembrance of happiness
brought about by the song of a bell ring.

No one is one colour,
but people who judge tend to see themselves as if they are-
its not their fault that they do- it is just who we are:
we can’t like or love everything and everyone-
if that were the case, we would all miss the detail and the nuances
of something or someones defining characteristic
that sets them apart from the other boats on the ocean-
if that were the case, then there would be no mysteries, secrets,
conversation, or fun.

We seldom encounter the same characters in life
as we do in the pages of a book-
most of the time the characters of life do and say things
that are far more noticeable and accentuated,
and upon reflection are far more glaringly obvious;
however, people are often blinded by light,
and do not give something or someone another look.

Two dimensional characters are just two dimensional characters:
they tell us their story and we believe them,
because their words are all that we have to go on;
but even after years of reading their quotations,
our image of them continues to live like it had never really changed-
a constant drawing of calm.

Multi-dimensional characters:
people of everyday life, who change more in one day than they know;
the same multi-dimensional characters that people adore
for not being a single white light,
but for being a spectrum of all colour
that brightens, changes, flickers, and stutters:
perhaps they are the reason that we seek complexity in our lives,
and in our stories-
that which is always at the heart of all the best dark characters.

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