Back to Pain

I know there are others out there that feel like they can't win. I know you are reading this and thinking that you've been there. How much heartbreak can one person take before they break? How much pain can someone survive through before losing their mind? How does one move on, heal, and feel confident that good times are ahead when everytime they stand up they fall flat on their face again?

It seems I make the same mistakes over and over again. My intentions are good, but the results of parts of me, or parts of my life that I care about just don't seem to work out in the end. I've had a particularly hard year- but its not just this year. I know humans aren't perfect... but I'm starting to wonder about myself. Surviving through rape, and the aftermath was one of the hardest things I've had to do. First it was disgust, feeling that a foreign substance was in my body.. which there was.. but of course even after the physical remnants, its the broken spirit inside of me... the decomposing heart. That's what it felt like for me in the beginning. I was sick all of the time, I couldn't loosen up, I couldn't relax my tense muscles, I didn't let anyone near me. I didn't tell some of my loved ones until months later. I only left the house when I was forced to. Then it moved on to shock, depression, anxiety, nightmares.. a lot of which i'm still experiencing today. I'm not sure if other survivors would agree with me or not (my guess is that you would) but the traumatic experiences I've had after the rape- the pain from that has been much more intense than the actual rape itself. I find that I experience it all over again, in the tension, the headaches, the fluctuating appetite, loss of devotion/direction, and so many other ways.

Losing a loved one, seperating from someone you love is a lot like that. All of the love I carry and carried inside of me feels like knives, like poison, like a sickness that is taking over my body. I can't eat, I can't sleep, I can't walk around without the feeling that I'm going to pass out, and/or completly sick to my stomach. The shock of being betrayed, the pain from three years spent with the person I love all this anger just tears my insides apart. The pain from losing a dear friend, who is more like family to a deceitful act that cannot be undone. I love my former partner still- but I can no longer look at this person without wanting to die. The pain is overwhelming. It hurts to love someone who has caused you so much pain. The feelings of love put people in the highest forms of themselves- brings out the spirit in us all. The loss of love, is the death of our insides and where we must be born again. How many more lives are left in me? How many blessings and/or gifts are waiting in the wings for me? Are there any? So far I've just lost touch. I'm in an alternate reality that I can't escape. I'm crying out all night and all day, inside my head although no one can hear me. The two parts of this situation are constantly warring in my brain- fighting the love, fighting the hate, fighting the heartbreak, fighting the fear.

I don't even know where I'm going with this. I just, I wonder when in my life.. that inspiration won't just be a joke to me. I wonder when I can live without fear of losing everything. I wonder when these nightmares will stop, when this pain will subside, when I can be truly happy. I deserve this.

Yielding the Knife

What do you do when your world is upside down?
Over and over when its turned and shaken
where do you go when you are completely out of place?
How do you begin to move when you've lost your faith?

Why is there pain from which we cannot recover?
We can only live and learn to decide better
this idea works on paper, but in my heart
it just doesn't fit.

How do you mend a wounded heart
when the ones that support you,
are yielding the knife?
Where do you walk, surrounded by
burned bridges, as you're stumbling through
shocked, bruised, lost and used?

I want to return, to where things made sense.
But that isn't my choice, and is no longer my path.
I just want to crawl in a hole and hide.
I've been told I'm strong and so full of life.
But I feel so weak, broken and dead inside.

I just want to live. I want to be happy.
I want to find that it could happen,
that it could stay, not just come and go
I'd settle for content with what I see in front of me,
but reminders are haunting me of what I've lost.

Who do I look for, and how do I trust
when all that I've lived for has fallen apart?


I don't want to lose everything, but it appears that
my everything has lost me.

Pulse

I keep my ears on the pitch of life
when I can't find the key.
The thumping rhythm leads a chorus
directing me to move and sing.
This song has been with me
as long as I've had air to breathe
and filled my heart with joy and passion
to share the spirit kept within.

When it sped up, grew strong and full
when it slowed, grew quiet and glum.
I should have listened.
Instead of looking to the sky,
I should only keep my mind;
bite my tongue and bide my time,
to cut out the noise and listen.

Nothing ever speaks the truth,
like changing notes and timely cues.
The ebb and flow of tone and chords
will teach me timing and teach me tune.
When all in one I can't cry out,
but wait in turn the lyrics will come.
If I open my heart and express my fears,
the world will listen and my
purpose is revealed.

There is no choice but to keep it going
if I choose to sing.
I'll always have the song inside and
If I breathe, it will survive-
because it is in me.
When I find I've lost my sense
I can remember I'll always have
my hand on the pulse, my vigor
my song; it is the only living truth.