I Don’t Mean to Question You

I Don’t Mean to Question You

(“Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s pleasure to give you a kingdom.” Luke 12:32)

I don’t mean to question you, but I will.
Where is the flock, the kingdom, the pleasure, the joy?
Where are the carousels that once made me dance?
Where are the voices that used to elicit my laughter,
where is the treasure I thought my heart sought after?

I’m locked inside my body again,
my brain refuses the sun. The sentences I used to underline,
now are gibberish, a language from another time.
The songs I waggled on keys of black and white
pass through me like icicles of steam. The spark is
dead,
the embers are
cold,
and I waste time like I had years
that will never end.

All my mistakes are on repeat,
all my joys are dead weight,
all my complaints are deaf,
my thoughts squashed by rules that
that I’ve broken and paid for, from curios to
curiosity. I’ve shackled my words to avoid
conflagrations.
I’ve handcuffed my sentences and simply hope
that someone can read my moods. I’ve muted
so much
that I forget half the alphabet. Do I overstate it?

No

Even as I write I edit. I apologize, but days like this
feel like
dying. I hate sleight of hand; I would never deceive you.
But I can’t reveal too much for fear of driving yet another
beloved one away.

Don’t promise me heaven. Just stop with that shit. Don’t
promise me
no more tears
like I need a baby shampoo.
I want a garden here in my back yard,
not a paradise in the clouds.

How can anyone understand when my own
thoughts defy translation? Pain is a trap,
a snare in the forest.
Pain is a mind like a cauldron
boiling with an iron lid around its neck.

Did I say I don’t mean to question? Did I lie?
Pity is not the antibiotic I need,
tranquility is overrated.
But as people have been subtracted from me,
no one has been added.

I’m locked inside the pain again,
and chained to all my secrecy.
I am not finished.
I shall write again tomorrow.