Recurring Life (A Poem)
Sometimes life teaches you,
What you need to know,
For an occurrence of yet to come,
But time ripples,
The past and the future equally distant,
But the universe cares not for what you know,
Rather the lessons that you must heed.
The pain you choose,
The life you aspire to,
The Universe:
Cares only for the lessons of which you must learn.
As life emerges out of the shadows of your pain,
Remember the lessons,
For this experience will surely come again,
In a different flavor, sure,
But, the sun and the moon, idly observe,
Waiting for you to stop in your tracks and change the narrative,
The misplaced care you have for others,
While you neglect your own blood.
Your own heart mind and gut,
Only for a moment of comfort.
You sacrifice yourself,
For this Moloch is familiar to you,
As benign as it may seem,
It’s as cruel as cannibalism.
To put yourself aside,
To love thy neighbor.
Offer this to your house of trauma,
Your black dungeon of fear,
Your neighbor is only deserving of your love once you’ve assessed the love that you’ve given to yourself; for its sufficiency is required.
And in absence of that, every ounce of love you may think you are giving,
Is evil as murder,
And as convoluted as it may be,
The death of the suicidal,
Need not be justified,
For it’s merely a notion,
Floating in the subconscious,
While you trade your life for someone else’s.
Only to find,
That your time on this earth has dwindled.
And suicide is just that.
So as you change your plans to please your friends,
Or continue down a road of friendship your soul knows is fray,
Know that you are being an angle of death to yourself,
Only to feel that moment of comfort.
And as time passes,
The story repeats,
Until you begin to live again.
So choose right.
For it will haunt you until you do.
And learn well,
For the lessons will never cease.
And bask in the sunshine of the love you truly hold for yourself,
Because without it, there really is no love in your life.
Only running from a goon in a dark nightmare,
Repeating and repeating until you’ve changed.
So save yourself,
Read a book of love,
Listen to Hortus Delicarium, or Beethoven's Fifth,
If that’s what you need, to kill your demons,
Listen to Chopin's Op 9, int he candle light,
And wait for sunrise,
And arm yourself,
For the day arrives with fox & prey,
Knights and gladiators will come your way,
So be ready to fight,
For that which is truly love in this life.
Of thyself, and then thy neighbor.
And that is true love my dear.
And that is god my love, and,
Henceforth, a lesson learned.
—Joseph Rothvogel
