Submission to Dionysos’ Agon

Running From Dionysos
by Petros

Let me tell you a story,

Many years ago, when I was a boy, my parents abandoned me.
At night, I used to sit by my bedroom window and wait for my mother to come home. Sometimes she did.
Sometimes, it was better when she didn’t.
My banished father was broken and blinded by his own sadness. He is almost a stranger to me.
Every night I would sit, wait, and even pray for someone to come rescue me. No one ever did.
Not God, not Jesus, not even the Devil. So I prayed to Others.

Every night a piece of me would die
until there was nothing left but my pain and rage.
A night of rage
Stabbing wounds into a wall
Holding the knife just under my sternum, preparing for the upward thrust.

A voice saying “No.”

It wasn’t the Beautiful General.
It was the Warrior.

“You will Endure.”
“Put down the blade and pick up the iron.”
“We will harden you and We will forge you into something new.”
“Serve Me and Endure!”

So I did.

But there is a price.
The Warrior is a loyal but hard taskmaster.

Decades have passed and still the pain and rage roils within my iron-forged body.
My body breaks with its containment. My armor no longer serves as it did in the past.
Yet I Endure.
But for how long?

Life has approached me with twinkling eyes and an outstretched hand.
“Let me help.”
“Let me return to you that which died so long ago.”
I drink of His gift and for brief moments I glimpse and experience those parts of me I’ve forgotten,
Those parts He says He can return to me.

Yet I run from Him, called The Joy of Man.

“Let me help”, says the Emancipator.
I recoil in my pain and rage.

“Let me help”, says the Gentle One.
My body aches in pain as I limp away and say to myself through clenched jaw,
“I Endure!”

May I someday turn to Him and say,
“Please help me.”