The heart, a lantern soft with golden glow,
Extends its beams to cradle others’ pain,
A river weeps where thorny brambles grow,
Its waters stained with crimson drops like rain.
Yet in this flood, a shadow coils and creeps,
A serpent born of kindness stretched too thin,
Through misty vales where burdened silence weeps,
The soul’s bright flame turns ashen, cold within.
A mother kneels, her arms a fragile nest,
Embracing shards of glass from strangers’ woe,
Her blood runs quiet, unseen, unconfessed,
While stars above in judgment coldly glow.
When empathy devours the self, we find
A sin in love—a noose of gentle kind.