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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAv5pLO37mE&ab_channel=French79

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I used to pray for it -

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Deliverance,

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Rescue.

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I'd lean deeper into my mattress -

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Or the pained, discomfort of a loveseat -

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And try to wrap my good hand around the phantom,

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To cease the writhing, and the spasms,

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The snake-dance fingers of a non-existent neuroma

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Or the flesh-skin, bone to brain discontinuum.  

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How far I've travelled since than - 

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What a distance I've had to come

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And how much farther must I then

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Be quietly coaxed to go?

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I don't pray for it anymore -

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It isn't in me to beg the ceiling 

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After all the years of receiving

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Only my own echo in answer.

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It is upon ourselves to transgress our limitations,

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To cross bounds, and excise our own deliverance.

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It is not up to fate, to rescue us from our pain -

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To ease the tensions or subdue the phantoms -

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It is instead, only up to ourselves,

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Only upon our own account,

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To find satisfaction while yet the pain remains,

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And to obtain the things that for so long instead

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Seemed to've been missing.

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Author's Note

Finally got the pen to hit.

Reviews

[John the Baptist]

This is a poem about courage. The speaker has faced up to a grim situation without self pity, and now, feeling faith has not provided an answer, is willing to seek what comfort can be found in the presence of ongoing pain. There is no hopelessness here; the speaker believes satisfaction can still be achieved and will seek it. Stoic is the first word that comes to mind. The second is indomitable.

[Ookpik]

Those are kind words John, much appreciated.