Pain is a weapon wielded by time.
It tears and it burns and it cuts
At your soul, till it penetrates your mind.
.
You try to defend with whiskey and wine.
Retreating bottle, to glass, to tongue,
Demons lurking just behind.
.
Haunted by the things you cannot undo,
Their voices echo words, and cries, and dies,
Somewhere deep inside of you.
.
Your wife, your child, your brother too,
Catch glimpse in the mirror
Of their eyes shining through.
.
And time keeps coming.
It chases you down, cradle to grave.
You’ve spent your life running.
.
There’s pain in loving,
In choosing, in breathing, in and out
A stale air hovering.
.
You’re tired. Done.
You say “Life’s a game of winners and fools
And I’ve played the fool my son.”
.
“Me and life are 0 and 1,
My body too broken,
Legs too weak to run.”
.
He sees himself a broken man.
Won’t ask or take, just watch and wait,
For an ending to God’s plan.
.
His daughter comes to take his hand.
Blue to blue eyes stare;
There’s a darkness there, she can’t understand.
.
Bitter words meet swollen eyes.
Tears stream, finger to trigger,
She sets the gun aside.
.
She asks him if he’ll try,
But he keeps repeating searching for meaning
Over and over—asking her “Why?”
.
Life is cruel, life is kind,
It brings faith and hope
But makes monsters in your mind.
.
Uses drugs, prayers, and turpentine
To strip away the paints
And colors of your prime.
.
Yes, pain can be weaponized,
But love is the shield of a friend
That keeps you alive.
.
Why do we romanticize,
Stories of men too rigid to bend
Who spend their lives in the shadow of pride?
.
Need to listen to voices of daughters and sons,
To God and ghost shouting
With every breath in their lungs,
.
“It’s not over, you still got trips ‘round the sun.
You may be lost in the dark
But there’s a spark yet to come.”
.
“Block out the words of bottle and glass
Full of liquor, bleeding, breeding,
Lies from the bottom of the cask.”
.
“Remember days of summers past,
Holding on to good, and bright, and light,
The wisdom and knowledge, that someday, one day,
This too, shall pass.”