Untruths

Physical Therapy is the new Spanish Inquisition. With Beach balls.

Untruths.

Uprooted. Such an unlovely word.

Hinting at elevation, yet meaning pain.

The very notion, of course, is absurd.

Like to lay out a picnic in downpouring rain.

 

It's a "why bother" phrase to put us at ease.

Imagine if someone would say it true.

No gentle half-truths said only to please.

What is they said; "This will hurt, and it's happening to you."

 

Is it kinder that we not say such things?

Does it remove all of the harsh sting, the reality?

Is it not a sense of doubt that it brings?

Saying "You are far too weak to take what may be."

 

It's meant as a kindness, not born of ill intent.

A way to remind us that someone is here.

Would it perhaps be wiser, time more honestly spent,

Telling you truly all the things you should fear?

 

When pain is upon us it's ours all alone.

No one can ever take away so private a thing.

It's not as if it's someone else's sins to atone.

Not for another to understand what that brings.

 

Allow, perhaps, that we are stronger than we seem.

Give us the truth. We of all people have that right.

A cut is still a cut, please let it be clean.

Please step aside kindly, I'm off now to fight

Reviews

[CD Campbell]

I lost feeling in my toes to physical therapy. I particularly like the line about pain being ours alone. You want to sympathize, but no one truly knows the pain of another. I can almost see the pattern in what you're trying to accomplish in this poem. The meter is always not quite right, but never far off. You're rhyme scheme keeps it slightly out of chaos. I enjoyed your poem. CD

[Randolph]

I appreciate the thoughts. I'm not terribly enslaved to the rules, me. I hope you can forgive that.