One Last Storm

© October 3, 1998, revised 2007

We tend to think life'll go on just as it always has — it won't.
No matter what, it changes... You think it'll improve? I don't.
I keep looking back to that night whether I want to or not.
The memories won't stop flooding at me no matter what.

Was not by choice that I went from sitting to reclining to laying back...
As he leaned further and further over me during the vile attack.
He was holding to my arm as he told me to slide down some more.
Remembering such detail leaves me retching and shaking to my core.

And I'm starting to feel so cold all the way through
That the shakes are combining with a shiver too...
I'm having trouble not feeling I'm losing my mind;
It's not fair; I can't cope, struggling within this bind.

With pain and anguish filling me again,
I again take ahold of paper and of pen.
I try to write out my pain and my misery,
Wanting some peace to finally break free.

Intermittent peace won't stay with me for long enough I know...
Not time enough for me to recover and for that seed to grow...
I want to live on; I want to survive. But seems fate insists I bow.
No matter what I try, the seed can't grow, won't bloom anyhow.

I struggle again, somehow managing to fight straight through to the end,
As I try with all my being to continue to not break, but rather to bend.
Yet even the willow tree can only tolerate the wind so long and so much
Before it too breaks, under what might by then seem the slightest touch...

Its branches may bend and sway for eons it seems...
But in the end, the tree lasts forever only in dreams.
Someday the storm will be just too much to bear,
Or devastation will hit with force beyond compare.

To the friend of the forest who did seem to know
The grace and the gifts that once from it did flow,
It's a shame to lose this friend — to wander on alone.
You heard its goodbye, the final shuddering moan?

It seems to us that our lives change day by day;
But the world all around us, the same must stay.
Like we believe the rocks and trees were always there...
We think nothing changes, so don't even show we care.

But that's not how it works... Do you not see?
We all have one single life — even that tree.
Once it breaks and falls, it'll be too late to say
You'll grieve its loss, "please won't you stay..."

Society is like the forest, if we let the analogy be;
And that would make me like that one single tree...
The storm blew too hard, did blow far far too long,
I survived for a long while, aye, indeed I was strong...

But attacking winds kept coming and I wasn't prepared
For another storm so soon, with all I'd already fared.
The weariness overwhelms me, continually I frown
As the last of my strength has been winding down...

I'd slipped to the end of the rope, but tied a knot and held tight,
Even when I had just fingernails clinging, I tried to put up a fight.
I can't take any more — but oh, remember that I did try...
I sought to hold on, overwhelming pain filling me as I cry...

Trying to hold on, each day for just another moment...
But unable to continue to bear such intense torment...
When fingernails broke, I still tried to grasp that rope.
But strength had long faded, I faced the death of hope.

And yet days continue on... Passing me by one by one...
I feel crushed by the weight upon me — it must be a ton.
This particular tree lived amidst storms far, far too long...
Pain and fear drowned out the sound of its soul's song.