The Cure

author’s note:

I don’t finish poems.  I just give up eventually.


THE CURE

She wanted to express
the complex emotion of that moment
in words
or paint
or song.

If only for her own benefit.
Her plan was:

On days when she felt blah and dim
she would return to her creation
and experience once again
that emotional moment
and in that way, cure her malaise.

However
she soon discovered
the work of writing was such drudgery
as was the work of applying paint
as was the work of crafting a song.

So she decided on a different strategy:

on those bleary days
she would instead open her mind and heart
to the complex emotions
conveyed by artists she loved:
poets
and painters
and magicians who made melody.

And because she now realized
how hard they’d worked
her appreciation for their gifts deepened
and so, she opened even more.

Nonetheless
one night she felt so flat
she could not muster the strength
needed to open her door and enter
the rooms created by those master carpenters.

In desperation
she then wrote:
If I feel too dead to open
to the life that gives life to my life
how can I live?

Honest lines
and yet
they sounded rather mundane.

And so she tried to find better words—
and more of them!—
she wanted to create incisive verses
that would fully truly express
the debilitating frustrating blandness
of that moment.

And by laboring long
she managed to transform those lines
into a melodic poem of color.

Not bad, maybe even good
but still
her creation somehow didn’t seem quite right to her.

Nonetheless
she felt she’d gone deeper
than she’d ever gone before.
And so
though she felt disappointed
she also felt rewarded for her efforts.

And that complex mix of emotion
cured her malaise.

For a moment, anyway.

Years later
she remains frustrated in her work
but keeps on because
she knows she deepens and heals
each time she tries and fails.

mythsteps · the cure

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