Wild Thing

 

Wild Thing

 

            I wake many mornings lately dragging into daylight vivid dreams

            It’s strange when your reality creeps even into the place meant for escape

            Is it to brace me?

            A way of building strength?

            Or just another cruel way to bend me to my knees?

 

            I wake most days happy I survived another night

            I’m not used to being alone or sleeping alone or living alone

            I need to find peace and the strength to crawl out from all of this with more dignity

               Than I currently possess

 

            He announced to the world yesterday

            A dinner he prepared for the two of them

            No one knows that the dinner was for her and not for me

            No one knows what he’s done to me and our family

            No one knows that he posted it to spite me

            But he’s happy playing the victim

            In this Greek tragedy that is now my life

 

            I thought of a question a therapist asked my daughter

            “How many tragedies have you survived in your life?"

            I asked myself this same question

            This is the first

            And I’m unsure I will survive

            “I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself”

            That’s been in mind for years and inked on my arm

             I should have placed it where I could view it more clearly

             I have to contort arm to even see it and it’s impossible for me to read

             In a mirror the words are even more unclear, as they are backwards

             It does me no good for others to read it to me

             It does me no good to have been the wild thing that offered him flying days

             He threw everything wild about me away

             Some things I will never do again

                 Some of that is a relief

                 Most, is only sad to me

            And wild or not, it makes me weep

            Sorry for myself

 

            I used to wish for cloudy days

            The sun always calls me to be busy, stay in motion

            I am like the animals that venture out of a den, out of darkness

            To scavenge or roam or play

            The shadowy days make me still, let me lay

            Now, I only wish for sunny days

            When I lay, I want to sleep and escape

            I am not defeated enough yet

           To sleep my life away

           But I’m finding it very hard to roam and play

  

           They say artistry often swells in doom and gloom

           I’ve seen where that is so true

           Maybe we hide much of our worth in blackness

           Like a spot of light that shines bright in a dark room

           Our brilliance only comes out to play

           When it has to peel darkness away