acceptance
i used to think that my old poetry was too focused on pain.
too much dread, too much misery.
i was miserable, don't get me wrong
and i am happy to have escaped that part of my life.
but i can't help but feel
a nostalgia for that time.
because as much as i escaped that pain,
i still live with pain.
it's a different pain, after all.
before, it was all mental. a silent agony
that hurt, but not in the same way
as it does now.
now i'm mentally free. free from all
the baggage i've carried, and all the pent-up
pain, and suffering, and all that crap.
but i'm not really free now, am I?
heartache is one thing, but this?
this is hell. I've been so caught up lately
that I can't even string together a coherent thought.
this is bad.
I wish pills worked. last time they gave me pills,
they didn't help and didn't end well.
i've got some solutions, for one
a back brace, and nicotine have been pulling double duty.
but it keeps me up at night.
i can't sleep with the pain.
and once the sleep goes, so goes my mind.
and she comes back again.
apathy, that carnal urge to sublimate away
agony, the visceral feeling that gnaws at me
and at the end of the day
i have nothing left to give
i'm just so tired.
i want it to all slip away
quietly, into a void
of nothingness
but it pulls me out
and i'm kicking and screaming
and i wake up, sun in my eyes
alarm ringing
is this all there is?
will the pain ever go away?
will I ever not be dead tired?
will... I... be... free?
maybe I never will
i will wake up again
and I will keep at it
even if i don't want to.
or maybe i simply won't
i'll rot in my room all day
a hedonistic misery
a desperate cry for
hope is a delicate flower
growing in a field of pain
like the poppies of the western front
blooming in misery
for a brief moment it was almost gone.
I was lifting, getting stronger, better even
and the pain was fading
then it all came back
and I crawl my way
beneath the barbed wire of neurological pain
through the muck of a deep depression
to go smell the flowers
i wake up.
another day.
maybe, just maybe
it's gonna be okay.