Beneath Life's Promises Poem by RoseAnn V. Shawiak

Life surrounds us with it's ineptitudes, filling the
air with deepest sorrow.

Holding hands with suffering, life continues - I know
not how.

Filling every day with pain, no longer feeling any-
thing.

Numbness causes an emptiness to fill inside where no
one else can know and it is the bleakest of blackest
moments in life.

Blocking continuously, struggles everyday, pursuing
empty dreams - never seeing hope fulfilled.

Soulfully forgetting nightmares brought to the fore-
ground with restless slumber.

Daring not to venture forth, searching for happiness
which only others can feel.

Nowhere stepping into light, seeking never, sunshine
and it's brilliant rays.

Hanging low, head swims in darkest despair, floundering
on someone else's whimsical ideas.

Reaching out to no one, being set beneath life's
promises, never fulfilling any of them.

Tiptoeing through deadened graves of yesterday,
tossing flowers upon marble headstones along the way.

Burying all of nature with one last breath of air,
discovering nothing throughout days of a limited
lifetime.

Brushing softly, tears of loneliness with a hand,
burying them gently beneath flowers no longer caring
to look from sorrowful eyes upon a life, unused.

Instead, turning from it, blinded by pain that will
always last through every tomorrow.