Armor

Forged to protect

Defend from threats

Moments of weakness

Shimmering support

 

Battled to destroy

Broken, beaten down

Can hardly get around

Plated liability

 

Struggled in silence

No amount of repairs

Halt internal despairs

Blinding visor

 

Studied in shadows

Foe seeking weakness?

Friend offering kindness?

Rusting trust

 

Tempted to retreat

Discard cracking pieces

Retire to silent hill

Shattered shield

 

Propped in display

Empty suit creaks

Author’s Note: This is kind of based on the idea that everyone has erected some means of protecting themselves based on past experience, but some people go too far and their protection from threats becomes a liability. But no one else knows what’s going on inside, so it becomes difficult for such a person to connect to others and to overcome their personal challenges. While mostly this is meant as metaphor, I was recently at a museum and had a thought about while suits of armor and other artifacts that draw attention, there was a real person who once used those items, and we’ll never know what that person was truly thinking about their life.

Why is it Repeating?

Time is not elapsing

Feels like I’m relapsing

Synapses misfiring

Cold sweat I’m perspiring

Dark thoughts are beckoning

Lost notes I’m reckoning

Defenses shattering

Self-doubts I’m battering

Neglect is defeating

Alone I’m retreating

Something keeps repeating…

Author’s Note: Sometimes you feel like you’re making progress, moving on from some things that made you feel sad. Then you can feel like you’re getting stuck, or even going backwards towards those feelings you wish you never had. It’s a strange thing, to not feel like you’re in control of your emotions, to feel sad and alone when you know you shouldn’t be feeling those things. Maybe you felt a need to talk to one specific person, but they were busy, and it somehow feels like the entire world has left you. This is about exploring those kinds of feelings.

Struggle

I spend each day

Trying to hold them at bay

Unwanted voices,

Chorus of despair,

Intonations of doubt,

Arias about abandonment.

They suggest a way out,

A way to leave all these

Painful trappings behind.

I deny them once more,

I cannot surrender,

Though the darkness may be

Omnipresent.

Focusing on my plight,

Is this my crucible?

Will I emerge on the other side

Enhanced alloy,

Or slag and soot?

For now all I know is

I will not surrender,

Another day beckons.

Author’s Note: This is a merging of two incomplete thoughts, one rather downtrodden and another more optimistic, both dealing with depression and the difficulties of overcoming it. It’s certainly quite a battle. These fragments suddenly felt as though they were two pieces from the same puzzle, so combining them felt quite cathartic indeed.

Is it a Gift?

My old life is
Crumbling,
Falling away.
Spent so long trying to replace
My lost companion,
But perhaps I am truly
Destined to be
Alone.
Could it be my knowledge of
Sadness,
Fear,
Frustration,
Heartbreak,
Loneliness,
Loss…
Is it a gift?
Some means to help others
Comprehend their challenges,
Overcome their troubles,
Whereas my own life,
My troubled existence,
Will never know
True peace?

Author’s Note: When things are changing in life and not in the way we want, sometimes we wonder if there’s some meaning hidden in all the unwanted experiences. These words are a few thoughts on that feeling.

Message Unsent

I think of you everyday

But I don’t know what to say

You should know by now

How I feel

Even after all this time

Always a part of me

Hidden away where the world can’t see

Time passes but memories of you stay

Plans and promises held from yesterday

Wouldn’t it be nice…?

…

But that’s so much to say

So I just smile

As you turn away

Author’s Note: This was inspired mainly by my own feelings and a couple lines borrow from a certain moment in the Harry Potter series, that is when Snape proves his loyalty to Dumbledore. Imagination can build up some impressive plans of things to share with another, but unfortunately those plans don’t always become reality. Then all the things one may feel become buried under the surface, a taboo to speak of with the person for whom those feelings are directed. But you search for a way to keep them in your life, even if it means suppressing your hopes to fulfill the plans you made together.

Standing Up

For the first time in a long time,

I knew exactly where I was.

Not lost in the shrouded fog,

Which overtook me when you left.

Not dangling from the precipice,

Where I trapped myself searching for you.

Not adrift on harsher tides,

Within my own self-doubt and regret.

Not in the darkness of my own making,

But standing tall in the light.

Author’s Note: It was extremely foggy today where I live, which must have been part of the inspiration for this. I stood up from doing something else and this just started writing itself in my head, images of challenges in nature contrasted with some feelings of loss, but ending on that resolute note.

Sad Songs

Each song, every word

Reminders of lost lovers

Don’t hide it away

Author’s Note: I heard a few songs today that reminded me of people who had been and others who continue to be important in my life. Although using the word “lovers” fit better than that phrase… The final line is inspired by or perhaps a reaction to The Beatles’ song “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away,” as perhaps better outcomes can be reached in life when one does not hide love.

Drifting

Fewer words exchanged

Made up conversations crash

In silence, fears abound

Author’s Note: This is a quick result of a few thoughts on the fears and insecurities that can emerge when you start to hear less from the people you care about. You might imagine the conversations you’d like to have with them, but as life goes on perhaps you drift apart somewhat and those conversations don’t happen. The quiet brings with it fear of losing connections forever, but there might be chances that remain.

illusion

ever wonder if this life is an illusion

you’re the only real person in the world

all your hopes and dreams came true

but you can’t wake up to find them

no one knows the truth but you

and there is nothing you can do

to make the world match your inner sight

but one day… you hope it might

Author’s Note: Sometimes I wonder if this life is real, when unexpected things come up, whether they’re positive or negative. More often than seems plausible, I find myself thinking thoughts like “wouldn’t it be wild if XYZ happened to me” and then somehow that thing happens, as if I were the narrator of my own waking dreams. A couple lines of this were a fragment of an idea for a poem I had a while back, then recently I watched two Star Trek reruns that happened to feature scenarios where a character thought they were in the real world but it turned out that everything happening in the episode was an illusion. I made a connection back to this and finished it off.

Roadside Bubbly

Forgotten by the roadside,
How could they let it slide?
Sparkling potion, full of magic,
Evening becomes tragic.
Colorful dresses, suits and ties,
Odd looks, whispers, and lies,
Awkward questions they ask,
Taking you both to task.
Gone, but where could it be?
Disappearance, sad mystery.
Careful plans, thoughts, and dreams
All long lost in the slipstream
Rolling up over the roof
Surprising all with lost proof,
Story with semblance of truth.

Author’s Note: There’s a weird story behind this one… I was out driving around taking care of some errands, and I saw what looked to be a completely intact bottle of champagne sitting in the grass in the median. It was at the turn to get out of a strip mall that does have a liquor store in it, so I pictured someone who had their hands full, set the bottle down on their car to get their keys out, then got in and drove away without remembering to put the bottle in their car. And then, somehow, spectacularly, the bottle rolled off their car and made a gentle landing in the median vice landing on the pavement and shattering into a million pieces. I wish I’d had a passenger in the car to take a picture of it, it would have complemented this nicely.

I was inspired to imagine a couple who were supposed to bring champagne to some kind of fancy, formal party, the type of party people attend more to fulfill an obligation than to have fun. But! They arrive and the champagne is nowhere to be found! And then everyone at the party gets very judgmental, building up a lot of stress and sadness for the couple who were supposed to have the champagne.

Despite all that backstory, the thoughts came together fast so this didn’t take more than a few minutes to write up, and I think it even wound up with a bit of a rhythm?