Everyone here has a story to tell,
a private account of the childhood from hell,
some ripped with emotion, some hard like a shell,
but each of here has a story to tell.
Everyone here has a secret inside,
that feeds isolation and robs us of pride.
But secrets, once spoken, brought out in the light,
our secrets, when shared, help us here to unite.
It’s the secret unspoken, it’s the story untold,
that will kill the body, by consuming its soul.
The thing’s not so big; it’s the shadow that’s tall,
no real form,
no real substance,
a shadow,
that’s all.
But when that dark shadow looms over my head,
it’s so hard to see. All the light appears dead.
Alone I am blind and immobile with dread.
But when I can speak of the darkness I hide,
when I open up, I let light inside.
When I trust in people who’ve been there before,
they shine the light in when I open the door.
And in that shared light, the shadows grow small,
And things aren’t so big as I feared after all.
We all have our shadows. We all have our light.
By sharing we balance the dark and the bright.
Alone with one’s shadow one may not survive,
and I mourn for the people I’ve known who have died
in that self-abandonment of suicide.
I too know the anguish, the steel, and the fear,
and it’s only through God and the program I’m here.
The lifeline is there, but we each have to take it.
Only reaching outside of ourselves can we make it.
But there are those still too angry or scared to reach out.
Alone in the dark, they can’t find their way out.
So with hope and compassion I choose to believe,
if I carry the message someone may receive,
and reach for that lifeline
and hang on like hell,
because
      Everyone
            has a story to tell.

Allison F. (2000)