Hope is like a fire that burns
It does not matter what pain has flooded your fire
how you’ve failed to add tinder
If people have tried to smolder it
If you have tried to let it burn or put it out
If it has burned your hands
The Fire will return. It may be a small candle that is barely flickering in the wind
it may be a campfire lighting up the night
It may be a forest fire burning down everything to start again.
there are eyes in hurricanes and breaks in the rain. pain fades and burns heal. No matter what happens, you have lived to see another day
The fire will reappear but you will not see it if you have your eyes closed.
You cannot see anything through a blindfold of despair.
You have to remove the blindfold to see the hope. You may see a candle or a campfire or a forest burning to the ground. Any fire is light in the darkness. Any amount of Hope is progress. So remove your blindfold and search for the fire. Light it with sticks you have scrounged from the ground. Burn your clothes if you have to and lie **** on the ground. Make the fire return even if you get burnt.

Some things are better off dead
Buried in the ground
The memories stuck in my head
Spiraling around and around

My soul sits in its tomb
My hopes are the coffin it lies in
My inner child is the surrounding gloom
My dreams are the flowers lying on the stone

My trauma make up the walls that surround
My pain is the drawings underground
My soul was buried with the shackles that bind me
I had to bury it all so it would let me breathe

You have to stop looking behind to look ahead
That’s why some things are better off dead

Sharks have to move to breathe
Sometimes I feel as though I am the same
If I stop moving I will suffocate
Relaxation feels like a pillow smothering my face

If I stop running they will catch me
All the pain I’ve spilt
My shame
My guilt

All combined into a lurking monster
Chasing me through the forest
I want to pause
But I can feel the monsters claws

My lungs start to ache
The tears stream down my face
I cannot brake
I cannot lose this race

The flow is knives

Chronic pain is an endless loop
Like Sisyphus and the stone
Pushing to be able to do regular tasks
And the pain as the boulder rolling back down over and over

Go with the flow they say
As if the flow isn’t knives
The water burning my skin
The fish eating my soul

Don’t focus on the pain
The pain is all I can think of as I lie on the floor waiting for it to pass
As I am unable to get up due to the agony
As I have to ask for help again and again

I do not like asking for help
I do not like doctors
I do not like hospitals
I do not like admitting defeat

But yoga is not going to fix the pain in my bones
Water is not going to fix the feeling that my skin is burning
Eating more veggies is not going to fix the exhaustion
Exercising is not going to fix the grief over who I used to be

People do not understand the amount of grief that accompanies chronic pain
Grief over who I was
Grief over who I will never become
Grief over what I am unable to do

The fight that you will inevitably lose
The feeling of just getting sick and never getting better

Chitter chatter
I’ve understood from a young age that I don’t have to think if I’m talking.
So when I don’t want to think I talk,
And when I’m thinking I’m silent,
I don’t think anyone has ever understood that.

Silence allows my brain converse with my heart,
My soul and logic tugging back and forth,
Constant
Chitter
Chatter.

When the chitter chatters too much I start talking,
The noise has to quiet enough for me to get words out.
They may sound like nonsense,
Even to my own ears,
But it makes the chitter stop chattering
And that’s enough for me.

I do not care if you don’t understand why I ramble on and on about nonsense.
Because it makes my mind quiet and my body at peace,
So I will not stop filling the air with my words
Until my vocabulary is empty
And my brain is happy.

They say that the world is held together by the love and passion of very few people.
The people that keep the world from falling
That keep the world from breaking
That prevent the cracks from becoming chasms on the ground
That keep the earth going around

The children ask
Are these people doctors
Or lawyers
Who could possibly handle this task

No, children
You are mistaken
I say
For those are not the protectors of today

I whisper to the children
As they lean closer, unbidden
The very few people who keep the world working
Are the people who keep the world learning

They are the teachers
And professors
And mothers
And fathers

Those are who keep the world turning
The populations learning
They make the doctors into doctors
And the lawyers into lawyers

The world would stop turning
All the fires would stop burning
For if the teachers stopped teaching
The people would stop learning

I have not changed
The same memories haunt me
I have not escaped
The same monsters chase me

The words still play in my mind
The boat is sinking
They have never been kind
I am overthinking

I am not the captain of this boat
I cannot outrun these nightmares
The cries stuck in my throat
My eyes dry of tears

Recovery is brutal
Is trying futile?