The Dark Passenger

Instead, the sorrow and ache of loss floods in and peace feels far off.
I hear the echoes of small girls who talk of being pinned down, forced to do things they don’t want to do. I hear the sharp words of weary people as they speak out of frustration and annoyance. I watch how laziness consumes, and how lives are lived without any consideration of others in mind.

It’s a world where brothers molest sisters, where girls prostitute themselves for extra dollars, where people starve and live on streets. It’s a world of murdering, lying, cheating, overdosing, jealousy, sickness and absolute despair.

I see the absence of what should be and I weep.

There aren’t simple solutions and sometimes the ramifications are costly.
And I can’t fix it.

I can’t change people…and I hate that.
I can’t even change me.

As much as I can look at the world and see threads of darkness weaving its way into people’s hearts, I know I’m not safe from it’s penetrating claws.

I see the absence of what should be in me and I weep.

Suddenly things just got way more personal. Being a generally ‘good’ person doesn’t get me very far because the darkness still invades. And while I’m not out murdering all the bad people like Dexter, I know the ‘Dark Passenger’ travels with me each day. Only I’m fighting it.

But at some point you just feel tired of fighting. At some point it feels hopeless.
And then you choose to keep fighting, or you choose to stop… and these moments seem to be the most defining of us.

Can I choose to keep doing what is right, what it true, what is honorable, what is good, what is noble… even when I don’t want to? Can I choose to do those things even if I’ve never done them before?

Can you?

At what point is the ‘better’ that we hope for enough to transform us?
As much as I want to live in defeat some days, I know that I cannot.
There’s a greater purpose, a greater song to sing.

Every day is a new day…every day is full of new mercies.
Every day I am desperate for more than this.

May we never stop fighting our ‘Dark Passengers’.
May we each be a people that choose better… that choose good… that choose right….
that choose love. 


This world has too much darkness in it.
I don’t want to be a part of it any longer.
And maybe that’s a start.