Donna Aldridge

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Broken Hearted

Broken hearted...
how many times?
Broken hearted...
how many ways?
Broken hearted...
how many days
and weeks and months
and years must I be
so broken hearted?
How can I live
with all of my life
just falling apart?
I ask you--
how can my heart
endure all the pain;
put up with the reign
of terror
illness
brings?

I struggle and strive.
Do you know that I've
worked hard to survive!

Yet all, dear old friend
, in the end, I derive
is your scorn and abuse
since I'm of no use
to you
any more.

I'm sore.
And I'm sick.
And I'm scared.
And I'm scarred.

And I look at the loss
of my life-work---my doing,
the meaning,
My Meaning,
cascading,
like lightning,
like drizzle here,
down all around me,
just falling, careening
crash, down 'round my feet.
In defeat,
here I stand by myself.

Far long gone
all the victories
that I had long savored.
So well, how they flavored
my life as I knew it,
my life as I knew it--then.

I look in the mirror.
A shadow of self.

I look in the mirror.
Two eyes that can see
others turning away,
never sure what to say;
how they flee, run away
or just never come near.

And the fear
looms so large
overhead,
full of dread,
nothing said,
not a whisper
but only a darkening cloud.

Every day, feeling harder,
the way, feeling harder.

And how to endure
to endure
to endure
to endure
to endure?

I reach out,
no one there.
I beseech.
Do I dare
fall to knees,
risk the fool
even more?
How they stare
or ignore.

Can I bear?

Broken heart
in my hands.
Broken heart
on my sleeve.
Broken heart
in my eyes,
in my voice,
in my breath.

To be well,
my great Quest.
To be well,
your For-Granted.
T'be well, my return
to the start of the line
if I ever can make it back
there once again.

If I only can get
myself well once again
and begin my life
over again. If I can.

© Donna Aldridge, 1996
dra153@aol.com


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