Monsters and Machines

It’s a curious thing.
What makes a man begin to hate everyone,
And everything?
Is it an insurmountable sadness,
That drives him to madness,
That makes him not a man,
But a monster filled with rage?
Or rather a machine,
With no empathy or anything,
That makes one a human being.
Was he really a monster?
Was he really a machine?
Did he really hate those people?
How could he go through it?
Was it God that made him do it?
We can really only speculate.
What filled him with so much hate.
So much hatred.
So much death.
So many people willing,
To be the monsters and machines,
To do the hurting and the killing.

Okay

in the darkness
when the doubts come
when the side I want to hide
reveals itself
won’t conceal itself,
when sadness overtakes me
surpressing tears makes me
choke and shake,
be there for me
and care for me
hold me close and share with me,
pull me to your breast
and while I’m caressed
with precious lips pressed close
lean in and say,
that it’s okay,
everything is fine,
it’ll be okay.

In my heart. In my head.

I wish that I could say,
Without scaring you away,
What is really in my heart,
But I don’t know where to start.

Sharing with you my despair,
Is not easy and not fair.
For it belongs to only me.
It’s not meant for you to see.

Nor meant for you to pity.

Still…

I wish that I could say,
Without scaring you away,
What is really in my head,
But I’ll be quiet instead.

And I fall apart again…(a note from a former student)

I don’t know what to say. First of all; thank you for everything. Thank you for helping me achieve a B on my CAE exam, thank you for always being so understanding and kind and thank you for being so patient with me, haha. I just don’t know what to say, really. For me, and for most of us 2nd years, you have been a big part of the school. I know that you will be extremely missed by all of us, and the school is going to be so empty without you. It’s so sad, I’m really going to miss you!

Lots of love,

On Mother’s Day

Dear Momma,
I miss you
everyday.
But on
Mother’s Day,
I cannot say
how much
it hurts
my heart
to be apart
from you.

Discarded

I couldn’t help but
feel a pang of sadness.

Someone had left a bag
of soft toys,
big and small.

And spilling out
onto the ground
next to the dumpsters.

A large teddy bear
lay face down on the
recycling bin.

Face down as if in despair.

I wanted to hold it.
Cuddle it.
Comfort it.

Eww..don’t touch that!
I was told. I know.
Someone put it there
For a reason.

Silly of me.
To feel sad for the toys.
But they were once loved
and adored by children.

Now abandoned,
discarded.
And forgotten,
on the ground.

Someone couldn’t even
be bothered
to throw them away properly.

The Sadness Worm (v.1)

I came across this the other day when I was going through some old Word documents on my computer’s hard drive. There was a mysterious file named “Poetry,” which contained, among other things, the original free-verse version of “The Sadness Worm,” which I thought had been lost forever.

The green worm that lives in sadness,
Wants to find a human heart.

For it craves the taste of it the most.
So very bitter the taste of sadness is.

And no wonder.
The bitterness is the worm you taste.

Its bitterness is the poison of sadness.
The sadness worm is made of it.

A parasite that lodges in your heart,
Eating and eating it all away.

Each time you swallow bitterness,
You swallow the sadness worm.

It eats and eats and eats your heart,
Until it is all gone.

And only a lump of sadness remains.

Wish I’d Looked Into Your Eyes

If I’d only looked into your eyes,
I believe I would have realised,
Would have eased the panic and the fear,
Let my heart speak and let my head hear,
Would have seen me in you standing there,
Broken the spell, made myself aware,
Could have slowed things down, applied the brakes,
Thought of more than just my own heartaches,
Would have known what’s true, felt what is real,
Before stepping on the hamster wheel,
Because after that things went too fast,
Can’t stop ripples when the stone’s been cast,
So I find myself, a decade on,
Wondering what I’ve done, and where you’ve gone,
Wishing I’d been, just a bit more wise,
Stopped myself, and looked into your eyes.

Word of the Day: sorrow

Today’s word is a feeling. It’s similar to sadness but it has a different quality. Sadness is fleeting and shallow and easy to overcome. Tripping into a mud puddle while walking home in a downpour with no umbrella might make you sad. But a hot bath and a steaming mug of hot chocolate is all it takes to make your sadness disappear.

Sorrow, on the other hand, is not like tripping into a mud puddle.

Sorrow is like sinking into a deep inky black ocean. Its blackness envelops you as it pulls you down, down, down to the bottom.

The expression “drowning in sorrow” is a fairly accurate description of what it feels like. Often it takes a fully-mounted rescue operation to pull you out of it. But just remember that when you emerge from that deep ocean of pure sorrow, you’ll have a greater understanding and appreciation of pure joy.