Poetry: What do you do

He seemed fine with that easy smile and natural slump in his shoulders
Goofing and playing around with friends
Until you see him
Crying his prayers with hopeless abandon
What do you do?

She said she was fine
While downing bottles of wine
What do you do?

When his best friend
Committed suicide
What do you do?

When she cuts and barfs
Through tears all night
What do you do?

When the child sees a marriage failing
His parents aren't prevailing
What do you do?

To see the hurt in this broken world
From a satellite
What do you do?

The world's gone to shit they say.
No, the world has always been there.
With age comes the loss of innocence.
The burden of truth.
What do you do?

To know someone is to know their pain
And we're struggling, drowning
Side by side but never more alone
What do you do?

Tell me, I beg.
Answer me, I plead.

What do you do?

Poetry: My Pain

I wake with a startle
What was the dream about?
Doesn't matter as reality
Sets in to play

The muscles ache
The bones are sore
The skin is stiff
The immobility of pain

Little shards of hurt
Course through the blood
Streaming down my limbs
Enveloping the body

I lay in silence
Unsure of what to do
When everything hurts
Who do you turn to?

Patiently waiting
Staring at the sky
Hoping to gain the courage
To rise

Eventually I get up
It takes far too long
Feeling like I'll collapse at any second
This is how I move along

Zombified I walk
I grit my teeth and move
It looks like I'm participating regularly
No one knows how it hurts to breathe

The more I move
The less I feel
Pushing the pain back
Refusing to yield

Don't let me pause
Don't give me a break
The second I do
Reverses the progress made

Days like this suck
Thank goodness they're not every
I just want to be fixed of this tension
That robs my mobility

Poetry: Existence

My eyes are sore -- like I’ve been crying for hours. Yet, I feel emotionally dead. It’s at moments like this when I question my life -- my existence.

What good do I do?

Who would truly suffer my absence when there is no joy in my presence?

I am a dark cloud.

I am not suicidal by any means.

But

the desire?

the... urge, maybe?

Thought.

I don't know what to call it...

a feeling?

This...

thing.

It creeps in while I am in despair.

These demons of the mind.

I want to fade like morning mist.

Maybe not forever but...

Why remain here?

I cannot remember the last true act of kindness that someone gave me.

I can't see any affection in the eyes of those around me.

I was a part of their past

but now?

The present is full of flippancy -- perhaps done in ignorance but

a rejection nonetheless.

My eyes hurt.

This constant headache is throbbing in pain;

it (partially) blinds me.

I feel sick.

I think. I don't know what I feel.

I want to lay down. I want to move.

I want to barf. I want to consume.

I want to cry. I want to sleep.

I want to be loved and babied. I want to be left alone.

No questions. No demands. No probing.

Please.

I can't take any more of this.

That's the only thing I am clear on:

I want the interrogation to stop forever.

I feel stuck.

I want to faint. I'm terrified of passing out.

I want to die but not really.

I don't know what I want and I don't know if I'm in a problematic place.

All I know is

Keep on chugging

Don't let it phase you
Be better than this

This feeling won't last forever

Do what you're supposed to do and maybe one day it'll be enough.

It's hard to see the silver lining when alone in the dark.

Sarcasm

Sarcasm is the worst. I used to think this when I was too young to understand it but now as I grow older, the feelings return as I believe that I have come to understand it too well. It’s full of bitterness and spite, thinly veiled as a joke— a way of mockery at the point’s expense. But you’re not allowed to take it personally without being a stick in the mud. A “no offense but…” comment that is prohibited from taking offense without looking classless. It’s a way that nice people turn into monsters while keeping the world unaware of their slip into hard thinking. A way to shut down empathy without appearing to be without affection. An occasional use can appear as witty but the ones that have sarcasm at their constant use have shown a trend to be people full of hate and acidity towards the world. Is it just a correlation or a causation? I have no clue. But there’s certainly a link and my patience towards its use has worn thin as it feels like each use is an attack on human decency. But how can I say that it upsets me? Moreover, how could I state the reason why? I ignore the phrase and move on, hoping that it is enough indication for them to realize that their comment was not found appealing. But when so many people enjoy this type of crass joke there is not much I can do. I have no right to tell another to stop doing or participating in something that they enjoy because of my personal feelings that have no basis in morality and are purely my own. So… I’ll just sit here, trying to remember that they don’t mean the offense they cause. But that won’t stop me from thinking; sarcasm is the worst.

Finding Truth

What is Truth? Outside of God, in our understanding of an answer between two people… I have  heard time and time again that a straight forward verbal/written answer is the closest that we can get. But is it really? I have learned more about a person from the way they hug in sorrow than their words have ever expressed. I know more about my sister from her laugh and the forced repression of her smile than I ever had from a deep conversation of pure honesty. Personally, I prefer to see love in action compared to an short exchange of “I love you”s. Am I alone in this? Is not watching someone ease a tense shoulder and then their lover, noticing, massage the hurt a better way of showing love than trying to express such a complicated and deep emotion with words? For short exchanges of surface-level information I understand that words are the better way but… for emotionally based information I cannot say that words are enough. When you are in need and someone comes to your aid without you having to ask, when you are given a gift that matches you perfectly without having ever mentioned such a thing, when someone assists you in a task that would have been overwhelming or time-consuming alone completely voluntarily… this is a better way. The hurt in my eyes after your words of spite say more than any word that comes out of my mouth could. My tone, my body language, my actions, the nuances that exist in the silence I give… these aid the truth in my words. How can I express the peace I feel in words without distorting it? How can I say the intensity of my emotions without misrepresenting or corroding them? Outside a simple exchange of information such as classwork or the weather… I don’t understand how words alone can be enough to say that I am being truthful. I’m not trying to fight you. I am desperately fighting to understand. My laugh says more about my mood than answering, “How are you?” no matter how specific the answer. I can answer what happened in my day but only my tone can tell you how it fazed me. Its affect. Show me, no… I guess, tell me how words can accomplish all of this. Because for me, the furrow in your brow explains more than your words. I guess I am a visual person. So tell me, oh pragmatic one, how do I make my words enough? When I am an emotional wreck, tell me how straight forward I should be. I'm looking for the answer.

Knowing

You can only write about what you know. Maybe you haven’t lived through that exact event but feelings that are foreign to your heart can never be expressed purely in written word. This is not a bad thing for how can one show empathy from a place of non-understanding? They cannot. We come together in our sorrow. This is how we come to the Lord: broken and looking for comfort. In joy of peace. While in glorious happiness, the feelings of others are in shadow and our need for others (which is core to our being) remains unknown. We have sorrow to find meaning in our lives. How wonderful is our God that He can turn even our misery into greatness. Lord, help us to know many things so that we can more deeply understand You.

But there is a darkness in only being able to write what you know. When dark emotions of bitterness, hate, spite, depression are shown in your written fantasy how I fear. Because you have to feel these things for them to feel so real in your works. Your inner torment is pleading, reaching out… and I don’t know how to reach it. It’s real, but where is it coming from? And even if I knew the cause, how can I fix the wound? I wish to emphasize but I do not understand enough to be a support. Knowing enough to see a problem but not enough to have the ability to fix the issue is a large frustration. And how do I mention that I see your hurt? When the only way this pain leaks out is in your work, and by becoming aware through this of the minor subtleties in your life that hint at deeper pain, how do I ask for clarity or for your honest perception when you have spent so much effort to hide from me, from the world?

You can only write about what you know. I know frustration and you know pain.