a poem about overcoming

To overcome

is to be strong –

this is what we tell ourselves.

I wonder

if this is just

another tender lie

we whisper into

unwashed sheets, tears stinging

our cheeks.

Do we sooth the arrival of pain

with the band-aid of ‘triumph’?

Lately, my ‘triumphs’

just leave me

empty.

I feel no joy,

no satisfaction

at my suffering, my

Sisyphean task.

When I finally look back,

it is all missing, each day flawlessly blending

into each week;

each month;

each year.

Perhaps, it isn’t all bad

to forget, but in the end

I lose everything:

the moments,

the memories.

Folk with polite hearts

will greet me with plaster smiles

and veneer teeth, their eyes still

alive, the light not yet beaten from them, and

they will tell me to be proud,

because I am strong, but

it makes me want to

knead into my stomach

like a potter does to clay,

and rip myself open

so that perhaps

if they see the steaming, stinking entrails,

they will understand

there is no nobility

in suffering.

I am exhausted, and

I don’t think I’m asking for much,

I am just asking

to stop asking:

‘Is this all there is to life?”

I am just asking

to start living.