Why would you want to know- you couldn't guess
that this Pain is about to win.
Despite all my acute mental prowess,
I shall soon be defeated, I confess my sin.
I'm calling my own bluff,
I'm not strong enough.
Its unassailable relentless wrath,
grabbing and slashing from inside,
on its unforgiving hell-bent path,
leaving little me nowhere to hide.
I'm calling my own bluff,
I'm not strong enough.
From the vengeance deemed I am due,
as this sentence, to life, and all thereafter-
shall not pass as easy or quietly true.
My organs chortle, gurgle, cackle in mock laughter.
I'm calling my own bluff,
I'm not strong enough.
Not on my side-
without symptoms, forecasts, or warning,
I nearly died.
It was a calm early morning.
Now I wrestle with my watch.
Staring at its face, watching and winding.
Turning and winding up the senses a notch.
The old me painfully minding...
I've met its partner Gain-
although I cannot recall
how to get in touch without the aid of Pain,
a burden on hold, a stall, a trip to fall.
I'm calling my own bluff,
I'm not strong enough.
On my battered behalf of fragility,
beaten into heavy submission,
a memento in futility,
severed fibers corroded by contrition.
Senselessly stalking it lurks,
in many minutes for granted, in the idle hour-
it’s coup in the works
Pain without Gain is killing my power…
I'm calling my own bluff,
I'm not strong enough.
Turning me inside out,
I would never want you to understand
how much company of Pain I can keep or without-
a sound, painted a smile, with a sleight of hand…
I stopped calling, I answered stronger,
I decidedit won't be killing me any longer.
See Pain has no mind-
and neither should you-
but if you find
this other of the two
(although you have it made and are not apt to exchange)
I advise, I implore, you to keep yours,
I plead for you to take heed, don’t trade
or swap, barter or lend by standards or poors
keep your gain and your sweet lemonade.
Image By Guillaume Duchenne, 1872, "for Charles Darwins chronology of facial expressions and emotions of man and animals" [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
