Ode To Premature Ended Life

Dedicated to the suicides of lost dreams…

What is this dream that leaves me with baited breath?
Waiting, always waiting for hope unfulfilled,
the dark tortuous tunnel just gets longer and longer
running and running to catch the light;
an elusive firefly always out of grasp.
How does the soul spill out its pain
to those who don’t understand
and minimize, always minimize hope unrealized.

It is said “hope deferred makes the heart grow sick”

and cold, and tired, with sleepless nights 
and sorrow filling up all the empty spaces,
look deep into my eyes, the well of others uncaring 
filled to the brim with stormy waters,
and drifting, cast out on life’s endless seas
with no shore in sight, and the lighthouse
has gone dark in the night.

A Book says, “hope deferred makes the heart grow sick”

and hardened from hurt unable to trust again;
with arrows shot from judgement’s bow
as if you know what it takes to be human again;
when being human is knowing when to love and care
when reaching out a hand to pull someone up
is not a trick to let a victim fall again,
but the real illusion is the careless heart
thinking it resides in the light

when there is no understanding that “hope deferred makes the heart grow sick”

because the calloused heart never suffers, so turns away
from hope suspended into some identified time
endless train tracks through life’s wilderness
with valleys of darkness and edges of grief, 
tottering on the cliff’s fine mortal line
unable to fly, soaring and aloft into love’s light.

Understand! “Hope deferred makes the heart grow sick.”
Copyright © | Year Posted 2018


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Date: 3/2/2018 8:35:00 AM
An intellectual and philosophical write, you have some interesting views incorporated into your poem.. You are a very talented writer Sheryl..
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Martin Avatar
Sheryl Martin
Date: 3/2/2018 2:21:00 PM
Thanks! I wrote this poem upon learning of the recent suicide of a female high school student who chose to die by allowing a train to hit her on train tracks. Also, I had read of a young transgender man who committed suicide by stepping in front of a semi on a highway which caused me to wonder why some choose such horrific ways to die - possibly turning anger inward to obliterate the "self" that is not acceptable.
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