I haven’t written poetry in ages. Years, maybe. But tonight, I needed to write and I remembered the release that comes through poetry; how artistically saying things sometimes means more than stating them outright. So, I wrote something other than prose, and it felt like meeting up with a long-lost friend.
I feel hurt and frustrated tonight, due to dealings with a mentally-ill relative. I want to be angry, but my prevailing feeling is pity. Praise God I don’t know what it’s like to live with such mental turmoil that I can devastate others and not even care. What a dark, awful place that must be.
Derailed
I don’t understand what drives you.
Sometimes, I wish I knew.
But the depth of your darkness must run so deep
It’s something I, nor anyone else, may know.
I don’t know what it’s like
To live in such turmoil
That I could harm the plans of little kids
With nary a thought
That I could scare them with
Abusive, abrupt arguments and actions
And walk away haughtily from all authority
With no remorse or fear.
I don’t know how it’s possible
To curse the woman who gave you life,
–Who birthed you once, and later saved you–
To hurl at your mother words so black, so vile
That most decent people have never heard them
Yet you laughed as they pelted her
And clung to her soft, rose-petal skin,
Burning through like scalding asphalt.
I don’t know what it’s like to be you,
Or what inner demons came to roost
So very, very long ago.
I don’t know why
You never asked them to leave
Never made them to leave
All the times help was offered to you,
All the times grace was extended
Like warm soup on a sterling spoon,
You batted it away like a spoilt child
Demanding something better
When her best, our best was given
And it was all we had to give.
I don’t understand why your things
Are more important to you than people,
Or why you would steal from a child
Knowingly – and justify it in your mind.
What comfort lies in chunks of metal
Or inanimate piles of plastic?
Your days on the earth grow short, and yet
You collect as though you’ll live forever
Seeming to believe like some Egyptian king
You’ll be buried with all of these favorite things.
I don’t know how you expect
Any of us to feel anything beyond pity for you
Anymore
Or how you think we owe you respect
After all the things you’ve done.
I know you don’t believe it, but
You are still in our prayers.
We pray for your mental freedom every day.
But please, try to understand
That this peace cannot just come
Like a magical vapor in the morning
You must want it, and seek it
You must want and seek Him
And He says if you do that, you will find
The answers to the darkness
The remedy you didn’t know that you needed.
I don’t know if you’ll ever
Gather up the gumption and courage to change
Or if you’re ever going to be able
to even acknowledge the need.
But I can hope.
And hope, I do…