Healing

Healing, I am healing -
I feel balm begin
Cushioning my skin
And my head has ceased its reeling

For a little time to come.
When those demons wake -
Not to cease for even pity's sake -
I am more forlorn

Than at any time before this
Gone.  For my gouges, scars
And wounds are opened, salted, tarred
And I am brought to the abyss.

I list to one side like a wounded
Ship, before I reel and slap the water
Hard, gasp for air, and in the splutter
Depths are sounded 

By my flailing hands.  I cannot count the blind
Deaf dumb minutes, my only sense is pain
And pain again until I slowly rise,
Tilting up, up, to touch the black slide

Of mind for walls.  I cannot breathe, cannot climb -
My limbs refuse to work, though I will them to.
My hurts writhe deep and clean and true
And they have parted all the pieces of my mind.

So when I cannot climb, I try and heal
Myself, till skin and blood and brains
Know some respite from their claims
Of agony.  My mute appeal

Is useless
Till I learn not to feel.
Death only, makes emotion still.
The way to freedom, I deem, is through 

This thing - not by cutting 
To an easier route.
To know the truly bad, salute 
The man himself: be one with his demons chucking

Your life in a ditch -
Is the only way to live
On through it.  You have to sieve
Carefully, pick and choose, not hitch


More horses to your rack. 
Hoard all those tiny golden
Grains of luck, and fold them
In your heart - that way you'll never lack

Courage to look down, up, forward, 
Or back.

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