cc477
anguish
is a selfish emotion
and a raw cry
made from the belly of the beast and all those terrors unseen
something honest and hardly admitted
kept behind fan and sleight of hand
it is something you hide for fear of being told;
do you only think of yourself? Are you aware others have it worse?
why can’t you just GET A GRIP!
You know all this just as you know
you can’t take one more minute
one second longer
staring at now familiar nightmare
feeling it turning you inside out and back again
(as if jaws were attached to your innards, pulling like a lover would)
anguish is an exhaustion
hunchbacked and ready to tear its own eyes
where if you could you would
run away from yourself never to return
where if you could you would
S.T.O.P.
where if you could you would
scream and never quit
until either your heart refused to beat or
something changed permanently
O the salve of darkness, shrouding such horror
how you have begged for change, change, change
please make it BE ANYTHING BUT THIS
and much as you did, nothing ever would
ease up and chill out, letting the prisoners out in the sunny yard
NOT THIS TIME or so if felt when again and again
you returned to
anguish
who is not definitely no
friend
but the enemy you know better than you ever wished
dangling by garter
over an old dunking pond
the shape of witches still burned
screaming in treeline

41 Replies to “Anguish”

  1. So much to take in here, leaves me crying and praying. Heart- touching does not begin to describe the quality and depth of your writing.

  2. Any who would claim not to know or to have known true anguish would remember reading this. They should then meet Mr. Poe’s criterion of having experienced poetry.

  3. Anguish is not selfish, it’s the body and soul way of coping and healing. First the cries and shouts and then little by little a kind of peace begins to settle in allowing us the remain sane Though it may not change things, we must exresses our anguish in some way or like an overheated boiler explode doing great harm to body and soul. A baby’s first utterance as it comes into the world is a cry of anguish for all the pain it has endured in the birthing process. 🙂 <3

  4. This resonates with me today as I am in the deepest anguish and all I get told is that I need to not be there, that there is somewhere else I should be but what the F&^% Anguish is a real cry and only those brave hearted deep souls will resonate with you as you face that fire that exist to burn you to ashes so a new part emerges. Today I feel like so few ever get this. So this poem well its painful but helps to read it. <3 <3 <3

  5. You have every right to feel your deep anguish!! It’s your life, your body, your soul, and they only know what it takes to heal and recover from your grief. Had the eye no tears, the soul would have no rainbow. 🙂 <3

  6. I don’t know why anyone has the audacity to tell anyone else what they can or cannot feel. Some of us feel things far more intensely than others do and they can’t know what it feels like in us. It’s just mind boggling!!! 🙂

  7. Really feeling your anguish, Candice. I agree with everything Natalie said. We need to lean into it, cry out, express it. Don’t let anyone tell you how you should feel (including me!) At least not until they’ve walked in your shoes – and even then.
    Wishing you health and well-being….thoughts, prayers, and love. 💕

  8. I’m okay, I think everyone who goes through a very, very long illness struggles, maybe I more than most because I was blessed with health until now, and I will be again 🙂

  9. I’m so very sorry to have written back to this late, I am still very sick so I have good days and bad days. I wonder, would you write me an email if you cared to and let me know what is going on so I might be there for you? You are not alone, your anquish is not unheard, I care, others care. I know it is awful when you are told not to feel what you feel yet you do. And as Natalie said, you have every right to. xo

  10. I thought a lot on this before responding. I agree. Anguish is not selfish. I don’t know why I said that. Other than maybe we are made to feel guilty (or allow ourselves to) for feeling what we feel, or are shut-down and told we are over-reacting? You are right however. But then you so often are, my wise and true friend and most of all HONEST friend (your best quality)

  11. Yes they do and now I just turn a deaf ear to it. When I’m in pain that makes me want to die, they are never here trying to help or offering consolation so why should I give a damn about what the have to say! Piss on ‘em!!!

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