Before we get to You Will Never Find Me This Way, We of the Showbear Family Circus write with a heavy heart to tell you that the author of these three poems, Jonathan Dowdle, passed from this life between acceptance and confirmation of terms. There was an 8-month delay. We learned 10 days ago that the reason for the delay is that Jonathan was hit by an 18 wheeler and killed.

Jonathan (Jon) Douglas Dowdle, 38, of 255 Drucilla Drive, went home to be with the Lord on Friday, September 13, 2019.

Born in Nashua, NH, he was the son of Eileen McLean Dowdle (Richard Davis) of Gaffney and the late Stephen Terrell Dowdle. He was employed with Dollar Tree Distribution, was a published writer and enjoyed writing. He loved animals, especially dogs, loved his family, especially his nieces and nephews. Mr. Dowdle was a member of Beaverdam Baptist Church.

His family has granted our request to publish this poem posthumously.

To beat down the door, with knocks like heartbeats
Splintering wood, caving in to penetrate
With words that are only searching
For a life of their own, denying all scars
So denying yourself, a perfect molded picture,
A beautiful frame, a vision-less alter
Which bears no name.

You will never find me this way.

You speak of your fearless, you speak of your tame;
You hold out your hands as though you know
The way – you trip on the sins, on the paradise
You had to create, and then brush on your shins
Because you’re running late.

You speak of reflections, but won’t touch your face;
March on to war in the name of a peace;
But silence is heavy, and carries a weight;
The ghosts that are you, that you dare not wake.

You wake from a horror, that you cannot shake,
Confuse beautiful with ugly, and cover your face;
Invest all of your fortune, to slowly erase
What is born between
Your ideas of sin or grace.

To steal silent, but not know your own hands,
To trade your own violence because you think God understands;
To find the shortest reason to follow the dark plans;
To step to be swallowed by that edge; and never come back again.

You confuse all that is darkness with all that is light;
Vision born between the two; love with a thought
That you carry on through, learn to bury and bottle
The truth. Separate and divide that you refuse to see;
So I can only see the evil within you, or you see it within me.

So you build your prison and claim your freedom;
Safe from knowing too much of your own;
Build a world and mark a fiefdom of one
Another’s blood and bone; take your refuge from your
Face, and build an alter to displace
And cover the naked truth within you.

To beat down the door, with knocks like heartbeats
Splintering wood, caving in to penetrate
With words that are only searching
For a life of their own, denying all scars
So denying yourself, a perfect molded picture,
A beautiful frame, a vision-less alter
Which bears no name.

You will never find me this way.