Let Failures Lie

Pampered, socially supported
education would have been preferable
but I don’t belong to the elite,
and this malaise disrupts
any hope for success.

Learn best in the trenches,
dragged-out combat over hobnobbing
– can relate to the broken,
other-abled, survivors who thrive
despite challenges.

Know a man, who without
speech or behavioural norms,
moves others – inspires
(trapped as he is) love
and forgiveness.

Have loved others, projected
goodness into selfishness, been
betrayed,  watched friendships grow
where mine was cut off –
bore the burden of blame,

still I will share myself –
adverse to saying no –
in restlessness, seeking others,
when I should be nurturing self –
Who’s really at fault here?

A mother, once faced with immeasurable
tribulations, never giving up –
is not to be found, cut down
by illness, misfortune having culled
her optimism, her enthusiasm –

What is there to do now?
I kick aside the ashes of former
identities, contemplate the meaning
of failure, the loss of ambition
this locked out alienation:

Is it hurt, I feel…
abandonment…guilt…shame?
Absence of former friends
echoes in the empty cliffs of
rejection…questioning

all that has been –
do they feel it too, or
is it merely personal mire?
What choice is there
but to embrace this solo journey?

miscalculated distances,
energy deficit, and yet,
I continue…until straight
and narrow meets clover leafs
and learning dawns –

paths cross over, crisscross;
life is about movement
and choices, and change
and endless possibilities –
there is no going back.

(Image: alone-alone-alone.blogspot.com)