always

seeking release from the needling pain of the present

feeling the grotesque aches invade the waking hours

 

reaching for a moment’s respite but finding no solace

as hurt and enmity relish the times when truth cowers

 

always

at daggers with imagined foes and friendless coarse allies

as endlessly surreal minutes tick away in ethereal dreams

 

hoping to surface through the sickly sweet sludge of fate

rising to confront the truth however brutal reality seems

 

always

ending the sour days as they began in a fit of sleepless tumult

wracking the mind with memories of wounds forged in the fire

 

always

stretching the raw feral instincts in a rabid bid to simply survive

finally reaching the soul as it grindingly clambers out of the mire