Wrong Endeavour

Do you ever feel,
In your most fevered moments,
That you have endeavoured towards the wrong goal?
Your target no longer hooks you,
Like you’re a different man to when you began,
You want for something new,

Changing journeys can be an endeavour itself,
It becomes a trap,
The trek ahead imitates a steel ceiling,
The path behind an MC Escher stairwell,
Like a trail closed behind you,
But no trap is unassailable,

To pivot oneself becomes strife,
Maddening indeed,
And yet,
It is a necessity,
To be upon the right track,
The right endeavour.

A Hearts Tightrope

When you have given yourself to another,
When you are in love,
You walk a perilous path,
A tightrope,
Ruby and velvet,
Laid across a chasm that seems familiar,
Yet terrifying all the same,
Romance is a game of balance,
Give and take,
Watch your footing,

Do not look down,
Nor left or right,
One side lies heartbreak,
The other a spousal thumbprint,
Sharks of grim dependencies wait below,
As black as despair,
Made of bottles and needles,
Stalking amidst shipwrecks of past trysts,
Splintered hearts of wood and all,
So keep true upon that rope my friend.

Piles Of Life

Trauma is not a contest,
There is no prize,
Nobody claims a medal for suffering,
We all oppose its scythe,
The piles of glass it reduces us to,

When life shatters,
Like a church ransacked,
My pile of jagged shards is no greater,
No more lofty,
No more fabulous than yours,

Your agony is my agony,
And vice versa,
Pain takes no sides,
Has no favourites,
It just hurts.

Pressure Cooker

Have you ever been plucked from serenity?
Carried aloft within claws of heated iron,
Dropped into water of stressful intensity,
A pressure cooker,
To stew in a broth of every ill thought,
Every wound real or imagined,
Bubbling with barely contained rage,

The situation builds the pressure in notches,
Until it becomes too much,
The steam shrieking in your head too loud,
You want to let it all out,
And shower them in bitter broil,
Your fury is as searing water,
Administering burns heated from your own strain.

Solace

I look down at this worn down body,
In this annual time of reflection,
Like an assessor at a road traffic collision,
My blood swills like a cauldron,
Each heartbeat a painful pulse in my temples,
Stress has overburdened this frame,
No solace even in ones downtime,
Somewhere an early grave is dug,

An unwinding repose is required,
So cloak me in lavender,
On a clear day of quiet,
Oblige me a rest upon warm grass,
Inundate me with scented candles,
Fragrances to burn away the strain,
A soothing face mask and herbal tea in the vicinity,
Let the breeze and fresh sky be a therapeutic agent,

I need this,
I need to tear this weight off,
This invisible tax upon my spirit and body,
Bring some balance and zen back,
To restore normalcy to my essence,
And fill back in that early grave.

I’m Not Atlas

Weights of the world,
All of its horrors,
All of its madness,
All of its problems,
All of its stresses.

It bears down upon me,
Crushing me,
Compressing me,
My muscles inevitably fail me,
I’m not Atlas.

Cracks start to show,
I fear that I’m doomed,
Can I have a ray of sunshine?
I’m far from a titan,
I’m not Atlas.