The Light of Honest Ground In open fields where no closets hide,
Honesty walks with nothing to disguise,
No sheepskin cloak to veil the wolf inside,
No whispered lies behind a painted smile.
It cuts like winter wind across the skin,
A blade that turns upon the self alone.
To face the mirror’s unrelenting grin,
To claim the flaws, we would rather not have known,
This is the terrible and sacred price,
The pain that purges, burns, and makes us whole.
Yet when the truth is spoken, clean and bare,
And others meet us with an equal gaze,
No skeletons rattle in the empty air,
No guarded tension clouds the open days.
A quiet settles, deep and bright and free,
Like dawn on water, still and unafraid.
For honesty is not the end of peace,
It is the door through which true peace is made.