Suffer

It isn’t found in pleasure
The ‘What’, the ‘Who’, the ‘Why’.

Like any hidden treasure
It is buried ‘neath a sky

That isn’t blue and clear and bright
and the air; it isn’t warm

What you’re after’s hid’in the darkest night
‘neath the eternal, perfect storm

Where the cold front of your heart
Collides with the thermal gusts of hell

Where you’re shattered, broken, torn apart
Where: Who you are, you can’t quite tell

As you search, you find your scattered pieces
Strewn through time and space

Your white-knuckled grip on pride releases
As all the ‘You’s come face to face

The child you were, the man you became
The man that you wanted to be…

The victim you played, your shadow’s name
The fool that you tried not to see

All staring you down
with hunger and lust

On this unsteady ground
In this desert, this dust

This wilderness, this purgatory
Possessed by your demons and ghosts

This land of promise starts your story
While the previous chapters close…

Those doors: locked behind you. There’s no turning back
On this bless-ed and cursed one-way trip.

But remember; you chose this, you shouldered this pack
Cut ties and burned bridges and ships.

Dig deep, in the dust of which you’ve been made
Find value, and hide it again

Offer all that you have for that field, in trade
Own it and work it, and then:

You will see through the fog you will know through the pain:
Why it’s buried,
Who hid it and
What it contains

It is there for those patient, those wise, and the meek
Who know the true value of treasure

Who know that: to find it,
Why you must seek
What isn’t found in pleasure

-August 2022