Life has strife and grief beneath
its sheath of growth and teeth of both
an oath for truth and trembling youth
that calls my path to alter.

A sleuth would start to falter:
I bolted from the halter
revolting jolts with stilted faults
when wilting vaults cast out The Stranger.
 
Danger changed my manger.
Arranged until deranged,
estranged, exchanged
a different wager.
 
I disappeared. Steering clear
appearing near
a weary jeered asylum,
sheared there and smeared with shame.
 
Weird for years, drowned in tears,
commandeered by fears,
I veered through guards
who charred and scarred my soul.
 
And yet I persevered.
Walking out one day
the rays reclaimed my fate.
A weight of hate was lifted.
 
I shifted when the horses
began to breathe a-near me.
Rearing love and light
a state of righteous passage.
 
They heal the damage
salvaging a voyage
where flashbacks are not torturous
but fortunate, nurturing, opening.
 
I grope for this connection
and feel it through the reins.
His scope gives hope, we cope
and reap, leaping to the sunrise.
 
I have the bug.
I will plug on and on.
The drug that tags my soul says time
is mine when e’er I ride.
 
The horses are my company,
accepting my incumbency
professional redundancy
and need to call them home.
 
I’ve grown. They will support me,
thoughtfully they’ve taught me
a sport that ought to hold me.
Boldly we go forward.
 
Sold to them I pledge my core
to wedge the raw and inner score,
with more and more attention.
Back now in contention.