I experience joy as vertigo.

When I exult, it’s like a step was missed

On the staircase that leads away from woe

So, to appease alarm, I’ve a checklist:

Since I’ve food, housing, health, and enough wealth

Since I’m presently spared from bereaving

Nothing is wrong, I reassure myself

Which is novel for one used to grieving.

My delight leaves me walking on thin air

And no ill portents warn not to enthuse

Then I clutch at the railing, get a scare

When I notice I have something to lose.

I’m giddied with glees, of which I’ve my pick

It’s dizzying how well my days are spent

I’m now so happy, I feel vaguely sick

With fear that comes from being so content.

…

Suddenly

I twitch

Trapped in memory

I subtly glitch.

I grimace, but slightly

Fight recollections

Lest I bother somebody

I hide my emotions.

I’ve experienced a flashback

By the time I’m done blinking

I am weathering my mind’s attack

Trying to keep it from showing.

To bring about the end of my dark thought

I quickly sever the hydra’s head

Yet, despite this, my guilt refuses to rot

And my humiliation won’t stay dead.

The first regret to lunge at me, I can defeat

But the shames spawned from its carcass smell my flaws

So they hunt me down, stalk me, slavering for fresh meat

A single trigger will gain a great many maws.

I badly want to be heard without hurting 

I’ll confess, I also need to be seen to 

I want to have impact without provoking

I am truly not trying to destroy you.

I oftentimes wonder do I have the right 

To detail in my lines my experience 

When it is always about you that I write 

The debate weighs heavily on my conscience. 

Because we’ve shared soil, my heading, I did geld 

It pains me something awful to confess so 

To admit that, years of silence, my tongue held 

As, your secrets, they are my secrets also.  

It’s terrifying to permit myself to speak 

Outside the bounds of our long-held covenant 

Yet it’s catharsis that allows me to speak 

Beyond the censure of loyal sentiment. 

I only write what I now and that is you 

My unapologies, dear unwilling muse 

When my pain ebbs, I’ll have stories that are now 

I’ll write something happy, something to amuse. 

Since you live in tales I own, there’s normal choice 

I can’t spill my tears without you crying too 

It isn’t easy to give myself a voice 

How to say you hurt me without shaming you? 

I’m a good houseguest to invite into your heart

I’ll admire all of your renovations

I’ll compliment your new decorations

I won’t start fights with the topics I bridge

And I’ll ask you before I raid your fridge.

Because I’m well aware of how to play my part

You won’t need confess your guest room’s a mess

As I will just spare you the awkwardness

Long before you need beg for a reprieve

I’ll take a hint and I will take my leave.

I’ve brought a hostess gift you’ll surely find of worth

As present, to show you how much I care,

I’ve sworn I’ll ask for less than you can spare

To soothe your stress that you give poor welcome

I promise that I won’t prove wearisome.

Some rooms are marked off limits – I’ll give those due berth

I will carry the burden of your “no”

I won’t stray where you’ve asked me not to go

It’s not that I won’t make myself at home

But, from self-restraint, I’ll watch where I roam.

This restaurant has a superb menu

There’s so much flavour in each dish plated

Connoisseurs all recommend the venue

By reputation, patrons leave sated

Whether they had nibbles or a full glut

As souls are rich, potent, everything but

Easy to digest.

Each spirit tastes of a riot of song

And intoxicates like a well-spiked punch

No one expected would be quite so strong

Or they might have chosen elsewhere for lunch.

So, offering more than mere sustenance

Each bite is a heady experience Every mouthful, a swallow of moonshine

The table is laden with rage, guilt, grief

And other gastronomic works of heart

Helplessness, sorrow, pain without relief

Are all popular victuals found in art

Consumed with gusto the more they’re intense

Epicures give, for distress, praise immense

Fine food is depressed.

Torment as entrée then platters of woes

Courses full of hardship and misery

Make for some hearty books, music and shows

There’s every anguish at this eatery

And the aroma! Oh, the sublime smell!

Bellies fill just sampling indirect hell

Hunger gone, the thirsty still wait in line.

That’s why happiness comes with the repast.

While tribulations are interesting

The first morsel would also be the last

Since life provides such extreme seasoning.

Tragedy can empower or destroy

But where it’s gourmet food, water is joy

And lets palates rest.

No one comes here for the decadent fare

Hence why the angst is complementary

People don’t queue for the tears, the despair

Though they love the scent of its artistry.

I’m just like every other sybarite:

I only ever order the delight

To gulp life’s waters, I must buy its wine.

I am doing an exercise in helplessness:

I am no longer responding to your distress.

I do this because I am barely weaned from teat

I’m weak and wobbly, I’ve means for myself only

You can’t rest easy on me; I’m a doll-sized seat.

The drowning pull people under to gasp more air

The hungry feast on flesh from those who try to share.

You lack and I’m too human to change hands of fate

I’d spare you, but the cost! Pay and I too am lost.

Tummy aches when I’m full and unsure if you ate.

I’m doing okay for myself in general,

Which is a paltry gift brought to your funeral.

It makes me flush but it’s all that fit my budget

Giving token doesn’t make me less heartbroken

I love you so, I won’t make you share your casket.

That’s what you’d need do if I let myself turn poor

Though I can’t help you survive, won’t burden you more

I’m resigned to being fine sans room for largesse.

I’m paid and just as soon besieged with cries for aid

I could empty myself but you wouldn’t need less.

Nothing’s without price, even wishing you the best

Exercising limits, I put “no” to the test

The guilt I feel when I refuse you help, it stings

But tears for you don’t come free: they cost empathy

And small pockets make me tighten purse and heartstrings.

You will never teach me sympathy for my parents

Who’d curse me as if your life and love were punishments

For ways I burdened them and gave little gratitude

For ways I criticized them for their ineptitude.

Grandchild, forgive them for the sin; they don’t understand

What blaspheme it is to make a child a reprimand

They so want vindication, they don’t wish you my best

Were I subpar, they’d crow I too failed parenthood’s test.

Little one, don’t fear – I am not naive to your need

I’ve planned out my life around you, it’s why I don’t breed

You ought only get all one can give, such is your worth

Rather than improvise your care, I gift you non-birth.

we are all sacrosanct in how precious our lives

singing, storytelling to the heavens our truth

keening against empty night and our aloneness

we are here, a world crafted out of love and blood

born possessing the mettle to thrive in the mud

and an exquisite weakness: only we witness

our fires, all our metal spires and our ruth

this is who we are: lonely Keepers of Archives.

we are, as a people, perhaps unique, distinct

in our existence as, elsewhere we’ve searched in space,

we’ve not found even death, just rife desolation.

we’re billions of Stargazers watching Creation

we’re Craving to meet another sapient race

with whom we could become inextricably linked.

but the stars spin on, growing, collapsing, and we

must contend with the fear that Earth will be our tomb

and, should we drive ourselves extinct, none will exhume

our history, if we are truly The Only.

the universe quiets, constellations can’t mourn

but provide grand sepulchres for us, The Forlorn.

It is such a curse to be competent

Cruelties claim those who seem omnipotent

As those perceived as the cream of the crop

Make best oblations when fall comes to drop.

When burn comes to blaze, when push comes to shove

Not for pity, mercy or even love

Is mighty spared; instead despair the strong

At being sacrificed to save the throng.

When all are sinking, the ones who float best

Are sent to swim, ship space kept for the rest

And yet, better chances of survival

Do not guarantee a safe arrival.

I’ve often been victim of such logic

Left mid-sea because it was strategic

Then expected to feel somehow flattered

Like my reaching shore is all that mattered.

But it took all I have to remain brave

But I suffered to breach wave after wave

But the jetsam I found was not a boat

But when I needed mounds, I got a mote.

At times, not everyone can be rescued

But odds aren’t often, in my favour, skewed

It’s not the lofty status it would seem

To drown in fervently held high esteem.