I’m

                                Overcome by discomfort when I’m not busy

So tired

                                Because my thoughts are frantic if I’m at rest

It hurts me

                                When days are narrow and my options, wide

The anxious way

                                I can squeeze peace through the bottleneck

I’ve hollowed for stress

                                When I breathe a meditation

It makes my brain so proud

                                I decompress on schedule

Though I tell myself to just

                                Sleep the rationed hours

Relax the alloted moment

                                Though free time scares me

Each instant passing, I feel I fail

                                Idleness aches

And I contract around empty seconds

                                The clock ticks

My lungs, my stomach, cramping with my panic

                                I can’t

Let self-reproach I’d fled know I no longer could

                                Stop.

There is a lake, and it abhors all boats

With their roiling or else their incessant rocking

And the loud screaming when they fail to float.

Capsizing leaves swimmers, who aren’t welcome

They pollute the lake whose banks they shouldn’t have left

Some waters are there just to look winsome.

But who can blame those on shore who soak feet

Then soak knees, then wet hips until they come to wade?

A cool lake tempts more than summer-hot peat.

Thus, it’s that only when without visit

The lake revels in proclaiming tranquility

Undisturbed, it calls itself calm – is it?

When alone there is some security

None witness should ill pass and no one can be harmed

As it will, the lake may flood or empty.

Waters no one nears cannot be a tomb

Untested ripples could be waves but all stay safe

The lake from corpses, the people from doom.

There is a lake, and it loathes disturbance

In the absence of bother, it calls its tide quelled

And denies still its state of turbulence.

The day that I stopped dying, debts came due.

The pawn shop rang ‘cause I was short a few

And said they’d sold my hopes for when I grew

And childhood I’d traded would soon go too.

The bank then wrote to me about my wage

To stress I could no longer remortgage

As I lacked future, far as they could gauge

Having borrowed much at too young an age.

I still owed to my past the happiness

I’d swapped for skills so I’d feel less helpless

And I owed to my future much success

I’d sold for time to heal my hopelessness.

Some kids mortgage maturity to pay

To keep their families’ trauma at bay.

Generations bankrupt themselves that way

Loaning from later to feed their today.

There is blood in my wine and its rust makes me gag

Although, in truth, it would be much fairer to say

That it’s my bitten tongue that bitters the bouquet

Drip, drip, dripping carmine copper into my cup

It’s easier to call tainted the libation

Change bottles and continue the celebration.

But every red I go to swallow makes me retch

There’s something in me that leaves revelry a waste

Silence thickens my saliva with a bad taste

Till my rising gorge threatens the festivities

The scene I’d cause to spit it out calls for courage

So, fearing the fête’s end, I drink my hemorrhage.

A drop spills past my shut mouth, a trickle of drool

My crimson lipstick masks it and, with a quick lick,

I hide all evidence that I’ve ever felt sick.

Goes on the party as I smile with bulging cheeks

My throat works hard to keep down what I won’t expose

I’m imbibing quiet but no one but me knows.

I’ve ruby words discretion forbids me to purge

As when toasts are raised, it’s rude to respond with grief

Though speaking my sad stories would grant me relief

The soirée’s ambiance is made for self-censure

Thus, to keep the gathering joyful, I suppress

My unvoiced secrets that, if known, would but depress.

This life hollows some into living wells

Their briny waters make comforting broth

Their tears, when well-distilled, taste like talent.

At least, that’s the most common compliment

A platitude for the woe-filled and wroth

Told their anguish is why their art excels.

Yet in truth, the whys of torment confound

Sorrow ebbs, flows, crests in relentless waves

With nary a reason we can divine.

We will there be intelligent design

Search for proof we’re not random chance’s slaves

Try to make of our pain something profound.

Hence, as Existence picks whom she’ll first strike

I’ll sometimes tell myself she’s a laundress

Beating stains on washboards and river rocks.

In this way, I’ll perceive people as frocks

When I must prescribe meaning to distress

I choose to think souls and cloth cleanse alike.

Since times primeval, the wash has been rough

As few could afford to be garbed in sheers

Must less enjoy the luxuries of lace.

So, when Laundress comes for the human race

Promising we’ll be clean through force of tears

I get it: harsh scrubbing was once enough.

When came time to scour the Earth, the dirt

Would remove itself after suffering

But here I exist, a delicate gown.

I see Laundress look upon me and frown

The blows she means to be purifying

Would tear my spirit, leave me bare and hurt.

The gossamer strands of my sanity are taut

Lest they snap, a new way to launder must be sought.

My doppelgänger was once a playmate

Who’s since grown into something that scares me.

Beyond the looking glass, my alternate

Provides me with a glimpse of fatality:

I would be just as helpless before fate

In another world – opportunity

Would have never shown itself, and I’d wait

For a rescue just as desperately.

Yet, my mirror self isn’t one I hate

Or reproach; we’ve both roots in tragedy

But where I got doors, she got a locked gate

Escaping that life is a lottery.

You win? You’re diaspora, tasked to sate

The hunger of a liminal country

And must send cash and kisses to abate

How, through the glass, there’s chronic poverty.

I fortune-tell my future: a blank slate

I scry my reflection’s: it’s misery

She is trapped while I got to emigrate

I am mortal, she is mortality.

It is tempting to believe in conspiracy

Then, I remember that to have an enemy

Someone would first need care to give me afflictions

But I’m too ant-sized to receive such attentions.

Thus, I’m forced to conclude I’ve incurred no one’s wrath

And how could I hope to make stars stray from their path?

If I’m too lowly a target for human foes

I don’t cross the mind of forces greater than those.

In a world where good and ill are mostly random

What one deserves, one obtains from others seldom.

Loved less than tides import the indifferent moon

I’m hated so little, it is both bane and boon.

Your affection echoes like a song

Whose words I can’t quite yet remember

So, when you sing them, I hum along

But love can come without euphony

I’ve heard it drone and I’ve heard it shrill

Never thinking it was that off-key.

Some atonal ballads appeared nice

Till you changed what I deem quality

Now, less than you offer won’t suffice.

You are my bare minimum of good

The baseline I use to gauge enough:

A value often misunderstood.

Enough is your harmony by mine

And how we peal sweet, toll pure, croon true

Till my views of duets realign.

Our mixed vocals lilt simple ditties

And those melodies leave me at peace:

Not all blessings are grand symphonies.

You thought I’d never fall so low, but here I stoop

Surprise! I’ve taken to my sickbed with a stupe.

My malady came sudden, you’ve no time to mourn

My candle’s light flickers – I will be dead by morn.

You plead that I not go, tell me I am your world

It’s amazing how quickly your opinion whirled.

I had told you that I was decreasing in might

Begged you to lower your expectations a mite

And oh, your fury at this ask! It left me pale.

I felt loved like water feels held by a pierced pail.

When I grew too ill to last and became death’s prey

Like anyone else, for salvation, I did pray.

Still, I ailed – but in doing so I came to know

That should I prove hurt enough, you would heed my no.

When my health began to unravel at the seams

You finally saw how needy I was, it seems.

Recalled how precious that it is, this bond of ours

And cut me some slack when I neared my final hours.

The pressure you bequeath me will, at last, lessen

It’s when I near perish that you learn a lesson.

I’ve tried to put out flames by feeding them hours 

Which I bail frantically, aiming to stay afloat. 

The more I labour, the more fire devours 

My time won’t smother the blazing won’t dry the boat.  

Though one should stop the other, you’d think 

This ship does burn, and this ship does sink 

Meanwhile, I am driven to the brink. 

Stood on the last planks before I drown or burn out 

I finally notice that something pierced my pail. 

It’s a strange relief to know beyond any doubt 

Diligence is not enough to prevent a fail.  

Yet shame speaks up, accusatory: 

“All those with virtue know victory 

Were you they, your toil would see glory.” 

True, it’s a poor worker indeed that blames their tool 

When results won’t appear, when deadlines are not met. 

It’s a poorer patron that hands out ridicule 

Not knowing the quality of tools workers get.