…a creation of the night

You think that you know me
but I am a mystery, a paradox, a contradiction
shallow in my depths, exultant in my misery
I am the queen of the wild, the mistress of the deep
my true form hidden in the shadows of the sea
you see my regal beauty, but do you know my pain?
I’m a riddle, a puzzle, a conundrum, hard to solve
my thoughts and dreams are intermingled
a mystery, impossible to unfold
you think that you feel me, but I am an apparition
formless and shifting, creating in my imagination
my apparent incongruity, a trick of the light, but I am real
as real as the pain in your heart or the yearning in your soul
a warrior, a battle queen with no crown
fierce and unbreakable my scars are who I am
I am a myth, a fairy tale, the embodiment of every stormy gale
my voice is in the thunder and my anger in the waves
I’m a curio, a jigsaw puzzle, my feelings and emotions
make me a complex enigma, too complex to decipher
I may seem ethereal beneath a moonlit sky
but I wear a mask, a façade
of what people want to see, their expectations of me
in reality I am untamed and unapproachable
you think that you see me, but I am an illusion
a creation of the night deceptively reflected upon the waves of light
© Ann Bagnall