Winter Is Coming

Suppose you find yourself as dark
as a winter ocean: gray and
threatening and ready to be wild,
wilder than you really ever tried
to be; suppose you gave up at last
on calm and steady. What would you do
to prove it to those who have known you
only one way, and not another?

Suppose the pills you take to keep you alive
killed you instead: tired as hell
by the late afternoon, unable to talk
straight; suppose you talked a good game
and then spoiled it with despair, with
anger. What would you take from them —
forgetting the complexity they smoothed away,
would you pat your hands like a grandmother
and offer soothing, listless advice?

Suppose none of this matters
to your own stern self: judging yourself
by the rules, letting others take you
for granted and by the way and a leftover
and all that. What would it take from you
to pull yourself together one last time —
to write that; to play that; to summon
what you were from what you’ve become
and to be that?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T