Hope Poem by Chris Schleier, Jr.

This is a personal record of times

an account of my life:

The joy, the strife

in counts of rhythms, in sequence of rhymes.

These words my story tells:

The preface is done. My life has begun.

Yet, long will it be before I recall...

I toddled, I played, I cried, they said.

And, then I remember: The start of it all!

As family grew, I already knew

The glow in my soul, and the gold in my heart.

I knew from within, with friends and with kin,

I'd form moral values I'd never depart.

I noticed a change: a self-rearrange

when things had come forward that hadn't before...

I thought differently: I felt differently...

This was the start of what life had in store.

Imbalance was found; a symptom renowned

for pain and for trials inside of one's mind.

What certain was sure; I was to endure

internalized trauma- The un-imposed kind.

This lasted for years; While haunting my fears,

Each day was a struggle: A fight to survive...

While all the day long, when nothing seemed wrong,

A war I was fighting, where anguish would thrive...

I fought hard inside, and almost I died,

till stabilization had entered my life:

And then: The relief! A sprouting new leaf!

At last, a decrease in this crippling strife!

It didn't just leave: Hear, and believe:

The pain went from raging to dormant in state.

At times it still flares, despite current cares,

But, overall, life went from dismal to great!

I still stand today with lurking dismay...

against mental flaws; A solid heart beating

provides me the rhymes, in rigorous times,

that this tumult inside, I'm defeating!