Tag: loneliness

Ready-made Failure

"Find your calling," they say.
"Follow your dreams and do what you love!"
But when I try, I crash and burn,
My body breaking and soul bleeding.
They've ruined for me doing what is good,
Calling it "quitting" and "settling"
And scorning me for a fool.
Unable to find satisfaction in the basic things in life,
I shrivel and starve and rail against the night.
Bitter I become, and they hand me a label
Ready-made: "failure."
And it's all my fault.

Escape as Medicine

Escape as medicine:
when chaos is reigning
and nobody listens,
open a book and run
to a world that glistens.

Escape as medicine:
when life is the doldrums
and nothing is changing,
dive into a story
with adventures raging.

Escape as medicine:
when somebody hurts you
and bruises up your soul,
flee to a narrative
until you feel more whole.

Escape as medicine:
when your mind is broken
and demands are too much,
find an alternate world
and use it as your crutch.

Still Silent

Anguished cries from a broken heart,
Pounding the empty night,
Reverberate in silence.

Fragile fragments of a broken heart,
Trembling on the barren ground,
Pour out empty silence.

Shuttered whispers from a broken heart,
Struggling through the frozen air,
Illuminate lonely silence.

Tenacious hope in a broken heart,
Clinging to the Lord of life,
Redeems the painful silence.

[un]Dead

Brilliant smiles light their faces
and their arms intertwine, joy and life
exuding from them.
What makes them so alive?
A groan slips from my cold, rigid lips
as I strain for what they have.
Longing is a hunger roaring
in my muffled ears, but I can’t consume
what is out of reach.
They scream and weep, thrash and flail,
and love.
I pursue them, frantic to join
in their living heat, desperate
to hold and be held.
I need someone to help me
forget that I am dead.
But they don’t see me; I walk amongst them
unseen and unheeded, untouched.
When occasionally a glance is given,
not repulsion, but laughter
greets my lurching urgency.
They pull away in friendly refusal
and I am left
alone, starving, and lifeless.

Pinocchio

“I want to be new. I want to be real. I want to be alive.”

I’m tired of the scratches,
the dents and divots and dings,
this wooden flesh with creaking joints,
and solid throat that cannot sing.
I’m tired of being without breath,
without will, without thrill, and all that living brings.

It’s my own clumsy fingers
that torture my deadened flesh,
scraping uselessly at imperfections
my Maker glories in.
I mightn’t notice them at all,
if I was still a young and shining thing.
I shutter my painted eyes,
imitate a breath and say,
“From now I will love me as I am,”
but with the tolling of the bells
I find myself again
pounding out unhappy rhythms
on uncooperating skin.

I’m tired of the cracks,
the details and colors fading,
these clacking teeth, insensate ears,
and carved eyes still waiting—
I’m tired of being without love,
without ‘try,’ without ‘die,’ and all the risk of being.

I hang from the rafters naked,
waiting to be clothed anew,
then sent on stage to clap and swing
and bring my viewers to tears—
of mirth or sorrow, it matters not;
only that they were touched, and spread the news.
Then back into my box I’m folded again:
an airless coffin less courteous
than ones dead men sleep in.
It brings my Maker pleasure, I know,
when I dance as he intends.
I’m made this way by his design
yet I long for something more.

I’m tired of the dust,
the old tap-tapping routines,
the peeling stage, my stale, cramped cage,
and the stained and fraying strings.
I’m tired of being without a mind,
without voice, without choice, and all that performance means.

I know what it is to be alive;
I watch day in and day out
as the people rush or saunter by—
my own private, backward show.
I’m so cleverly made I can mimic
quite well a human being’s airs.
I laugh and cry, I run and bleed—
and sometimes I even seem to die.
There is one glaring difference,
and it isn’t even my strings:
While each real man walks hand in hand
with others, except for my Maker,
I am alone.

I’m tired of the years—
no human span competing—
this splintered cask I call my chest,
but where no heart lies beating.
I’m tired of being the same,
no chance, no hope of change…

Hear me, Maker. I am weeping.

No Fairytale

Stand at the window, I,
head upon hand, sighing.
Broken shards upon the ground lie
like fragments of tender dreams.
Waiting and longing, I
shut out the impatient pounding
upon the door of this my
last and only refuge.
Heartbroken and friendless, I,
with no prince to come and save me.

Outside

I’m tired of striving for your attention.
I’m tired of feeling alone and unloved—
An afterthought, if a thought at all.

If I stand still and wait,
I know you will never come—
Never even notice my silence.

Cuckoo

Every hour on the hour I cry
For attention, then dart away again to hide.
Just once, sometimes: a plea
Born of urgent agony that quickly subsides.
Other times a repetitive appeal
Saying "look at me, pay heed to me, abide
With me." But each desperate call
Sends me winging frantically away.

Always I swear "never again,"
But as the hour draws near, like clockwork
I reemerge to voice my pain.
The slow minutes I am alone blend relief
Like a balm with the strain
Of fear and anxiety and I vow I won't
Step out to speak again.

Yet the hands still move
And the gears draw me forth.