Struggle IX

By Andrew R. Duckworth

At my lowest, I was confined
To a blue leather sofa,
Constant fatigue,
A life of muck between
The cogs that make everything move.
I was a man of eye rolls
And little else,
A waste of muscle and skin,
Sinking away into despair over
An uncertain future that
I was sure would be
Steeped in failure.
I wasn’t the man I had promised
I would be to those in my
Graduating class,
And I had no idea how
I would get there or how
I would even get started.
My savior was the daily pill
To make the world more tolerable
And make me a bit more tolerable.
Life was as prosperous
As the dying peach tree
In my back yard.
No matter how often it is watered,
The leaves wilt under baking heat.
For days on end, I would wilt,
Waste away under a blanket
Of deep and dark confinement.
What was holding me down
But the weight of my own mind?
The very thing keeping me confined
Was the thing I needed to use most,
The key to the prison cell-
The cell itself,
A conundrum,
But one that would break
When i became tired of being tired,
Tired of the oppression
Brought by the demon of despair,
Tired of self-doubt
That held me down.
And so, I headed out
Into the open air.