Reprieve

What dark thoughts encroach my mind late at night?
When all the world is tucked safely in bed?
Simple: Perhaps I should give up the fight,
For life would be better if I were dead.
The day to day battle would be no more
If I would simply lay my burden down
and in so doing, end this tired war
and accept by self Death’s mantle and crown
Would peace then attend me? Would I feel it?
Or would those cloaked their shadows steal it?

Reason, dear reader, shows the world better,
for life’s insurance would settle old scores
My family thus free, under no fetter
money to light the way, and open doors.
And it is not as though I see them now
in between overtime, and other jobs
so this is the best time to take a bow,
to minimize pain, and lessen the sobs…

This darkest thought sits with me in the night,
on my mind, on my chest, til morning light…
And sleep, when it comes, makes jest of my pain-
amplifies my fears again and again
a movie-unwanted, and yet still played
Blurrs black and white til the world is grayed…

And yet…I keep on…

And I keep on,
And I weep on,
And as the darkness continues to creep
and the fears in my mind dance and leap
and the unfairness of it all leaves me a heap
of quivering madness barely able to make a peep…
Weeping on…
I keep…keeping on

Uplifted, in moments of slipping madness
battling back the swirling sadness
by catching fleeting smiles of their own gladness…
and my madness, my sorrows, known only to me
for a moment don’t exist, and I am set free,
like Atlas when relieved by Hercules
and the world is gone…
and we can just…
be…