A Life

A life of regret, a life of sadness
A life of longing, A life of hope
A life of joy, and a life of hate
A mixed bag, this life

A life of pain

I’ve lived many a life in this lifetime alone
But I’ve indeed spent it on my own
In a cage, far distant and cold
A prison of bars and pillars of stone

Perhaps easy to break, not so on my own
The whimsy of life eludes me, even at home
The laughter of children, and couples outside
The birds chirping, and angels that cry

A scene so jubilant, so keen to the eye
If I were to take the throne
Would this happiness be mine?
Is this life a lesson - or a gift, divine?
Is it the book, or just a chapter in mine?

So I grew and changed, and grew some more still
And I did take that throne, I took life by the hilt
I loosened my chains, and for more I do pray
Yet for now I have meaning, and so forward I stray

Keen to explore, to keep the demons at bay
These memories of yore, perhaps suffice to say
Are irrelevant
To my needs and struggles of today

Yet as soon as I’m idle, they come back to taunt me
Not a moment of peace in this life that is haunted
Perhaps ghosts are real, but not how you’d think
Perhaps they are figments of the stories we keep

I fight my own battles, as the knight of my castle
The King and the servant, both equal in battle
Yet one and the same, so equal there too
But life is deceitful, and it played me the fool

See life can be twisted, and often complex
A quick, sordid turn from “the greatest, the best”
To taken too soon, and too then laid to rest
A fate like all of the others of “lesser” had met

My castle had fallen, and I fell to depression
An utter blackness, like none ever mentioned
My cage again rose from the ground
Encased in the ashes of my kingdom now drowned

I was diseased, dragging my feet to defeat
Staring death in the eye and gritting my teeth
I’d fallen to nature, not man as intended
Yet i was still bitter, and so too my intention

But spite alone cannot win this battle
And I was too young to break these shackles
I was scared beyond belief
Caught in the headlights, I was forced to reflect

What is this life to me?

A life of hope, a life enjoyed
A life of pain, a life destroyed
A life entrapped, a life denied
A life of ventures, this life of mine

A life of failures, a life of guile
A life of substance, a life of style
A life of longing, a life of hate
A life forgiving, a life of change

This mantra I spoke
To myself in my bed
Maybe a thousand times
When my chest filled with dread
And when the nurse came and left?
The solace of life, was this rhyme in my head

A life is hope, and I yearn it again
And life is pain, but that I can’t condemn
For life is a pendulum, balanced on a thread
What a lesson I learned, and I learned from the best
We’re forever students, till the day of our deaths

And so I found my answer, as I got to my feet
Building my castle from the rubble beneath
Life is not joy, and life is not pain
Life is not happiness, and life is not hate
Life is not fickle, as our emotions are strange

But life is a blessing
Because life can bring change