Diary Entry; Exhausted Polyhymnia Poem by Arthur H Rowley

It is the yawning morning of December
and I have started the pills again
the doctor reminded me, not unkindly,
that life is difficult for everyone
but impossible for some
and that next time I think I'm ready to handle this alone
to talk to her first
I said I understood
I'm not sure I meant it

here at home
I am waiting to feel something
or nothing

in the peace of solidarity
I think of what I should have told the doctor about why I stopped last time
the way I couldn't feel the rain falling
and how the sun stopped warming my skin
and how much I missed it
the pain
the slice of electricity with each pulse surging down my spine
the dull numbing ache in my chest that I grew so familiar with over that decade
when I was that creature
raw and unmedicated
I have built this life on sorrow
my music
my poetry
without sadness I know not who I am

I should have told her
that she should know from my return
how bad I think it could get if left alone
she should know that my thirst for that deteriorating emptiness
speaks more of my need for peace
than my want for joy

patiently
I wait for side effects
knowing peace will not be among them
knowing it never is
though the loss of joy will hurt me
the pain is too great
and I am too tired

o' to sell tomorrow's bliss
for today's silence
what a cheap trick I have played upon myself.