I will not succumb to the darkest night

Though the sunlight may be damned to run away

I’ve emerged from the grave with a renewed sense of day

Made blind to the formless wiles of fright,

And endowed with the responsibility to bring light

I will not succumb to the darkest night

I have made what was once predator into prey

Even though the light will fail in its doomsday

I will never cease to have faith in all that is right,

For I will not give up on it without a fight

I will not succumb to the darkest night

Even though the flames have gone astray

And the sky has darkened with the close of day

I am guided by an inner fire burning bright,

A force so blinding I do not need the daylight

I will not succumb to the darkest night,

Though the darkness may blot out every blinding ray

And every fleeting hope may be largely cast away,

I will no longer break under trauma’s sickening bite,

Nor be paralyzed by uncertainty’s gradual twilight

I will not succumb to the darkest night,

Even though my courage may decay

And dark memories may readily replay,

I pledge to continue to stand firm despite

So many doubting the truthfulness of my plight

I will not succumb to the darkest night

I will rage against his sins of vast array

Even though religious indifference wills me to decay

I will not concede to Time’s infectious bite

Nor simply watch the diminishing of the light

I will not succumb to the darkest night,

Though it may completely obscure my way

And from the path I may be forced to stray,

That controlling fear I yearn to spite

Even though doing so may cast me in limelight

For

I will not succumb to the darkest night

The unforgiving darkness I swear to betray

For I will not so easily wither away;

And against the blackened doom I will fight

Until its horizon’s end besmirches my sight…

I will not succumb to the darkest night

For over mountains and across the oceans bursts forth the sun bright,

Screaming and laughing with the return of the day

Revealing the predatory nature of all who were once prey

I open my hands and my heart to reveal an ever-present firelight

As my once silenced voice takes its ascending flight:

Darkness wretches at the words I had the courage to say,

And It can no longer will the fire in my soul away,

For I am its God, the true bringer of light;

I am the marching cavalry of day,

And I am the drill sergeant of the night.