Ruth Desjardins The enemies have loving smiles
And pain in guilty eyes;
The enemies seek sympathy–
The kindness of “white lies”.
They seldom see reality;
They live on surface plains,
And sweep away the guilty thoughts
That enter now and then.
The enemies will scorn your dreams,
Or smile indulgently,
And wait for you to topple down–
Then soothe you lovingly.
The enemies are everywhere,
They’re hard to recognize,
Because the child within us
Has needed their disguise.
A child could never face the truth
That no one was a friend–
So, helpless in the world alone,
We needed to pretend.
Tiny little heroes then
Sought shelter in a dream;
So trust and hope could help them through,
They muffled all their screams.
And still the children hide in us,
And while they fear to see,
The very truth they hide away
Is what could set them free.
But little children growing up
Forget what they had known,
And they believe the smiling lies
Long before they’re grown.
They learn to play the game so well–
How could they ever see
They’d rather be the guilty ones
Than know their enemies?
Unless someday they realize
What victims they had been,
And understand their enemies
And all the things they’ve seen,
A circle will enclose their lives,
Encompass all they do,
To lead them into danger,
And make them guilty too.
Unless they look at scary truth,
Unlock the doors of fear,
They’ll never see their innocense,
Or ever hold it near.
The child will cry forever
Deep down inside the soul;
The adult will not hear a sound,
And never, ever know
The beauty that a life can hold,
The strength that could have grown,
The dreams that might have all come true,
The love they could have known.
Instead, they’ll use their loving smiles
To look for sympathy;
They’ll sweep away their guilty thoughts,
Disguise their cruelty.
And when a child looks at them
Trust brimming from his eyes,
They won’t even hate themselves
For telling smiling lies.
The circle will begin again
And every hope will freeze.
Yes, once they were the victims,
But now they’re enemies.
