Struggle ( a really long poem)
Updated: Feb 20, 2021
Struggle
By, Wendiann Alfieri
As the wind whips my hair
As my feet try to stay grounded
It appears my anxiety is unfounded
My feet are buried even beneath this glass
To make sure I stay here
The pain doesn’t even feel bad
It’s better than flying around with debri In the wind
Trying to carry me
The farthest away
I dig my feet into the glass
Sweat runs down my back
Part of me wishes
The wind would give up
That the earth won’t make me sink
Either way I will bleed
So take me to my element
the water is so clear
Let me float there
Let me swim down deep
With a tail and folklore fantasy
I don’t like the garbage on the ground
Or the smell of sewage and the swirling plastic bags the wind carries
The fire in me wants to get even
I just want to be in a clear sea
swim down deep
Caution I must reap,
As I know the fishes is not where I want to sleep
I think of time as one moment
One Big Bang
And everything is a cycle
Everything bounces off each other
It’s like dominoes
No matter how you place them they all fall consecutively
they end up what they started as
A handful of tiles
It doesn’t matter the beauty in between, the thought you can make something so delicately just to knock it down
It started one way
A handful of tiles
No matter your creativity or ideas
It ends the same way
As a handful of tileS
It teaches and builds patience and strategy whether placing them upward to knock down or playing the game strategically
It started as a handful of tiles
it ends the same way
I am just starting to dream
Through this crazy world
I’ve done what I need to for the day
On my pillow my head soon lays
The morning roles on
The kids jump in the bed
“ Let us go outside, to our Childness we shall wed
Parting words and favors mom, what do you have to provide us with luck?”
Damn, sounds like something fun
I try to sit up
Exiting the sleep kingdom
I try but I can’t
My head keeps making me think I woke up and I get up in this dream that I think is real
Because of its very appeal
Everytime I get up
It snaps me back to me waking up
It goes on and on
“Waking up” full appetite
Starved once again
Just please brain,
Let me have my peace
I’m a writer you see
brain I am ready for combat
Before I even draw my pen
You make me go sleep again
An idea a start
One want to explore
Then again,
I wake up back in the dream loop
Please brain,
Make up your mind,
Am I up
Is there a reason for my tired eyes?
Let me journey with my words
A shield for me is my sword
I wake up eventually
After the repetition has to cease
Then I go to break the dam
Of waking up finally
My notebook ready
Wondering what fiction to make reality
Most importantly:
I’ve got a mind to feed
The hunger that wrestles and starves you even when doing its bidding
The cycle of curiosity
Fire flys from my hand
Heat building up
Writing without a plan
Candle flames are details
All I’ve got so far are the flames of ideas that rise high
They push on
They push on to get to the message
The fine print they are blind to
As well as me as the wind flows through
The flames go everywhere
Engulfing every independent thought
Into one long writing rush
The flames grow so much
I’ve lost the point in my words
Here comes the rain
To put out the flames
All is left of the beauty
Is torn paper and ink brooding
I am ashamed
Where shall I go?
Surely not to start more flames here below
The people that were gentle fire
Candles drawing you into desire
Madness drove them to melt
I run to some stairs
Going up to a tower
Locking myself away from this
Unnecessary power
wind does not fall
It whips around
Circles of wax not seen on ground
The smell rises
Most bitter sweet
Original ideas wasted away
Taking away the taste I long for
Trickery of mint
Pine trees
Apples
Sugar
Vanilla
Cinnamon
All their own wisp
Flying past this tower
To an upward abyss
My days of staying in a room
Makes me forget when the flowers will bloom
This room is small
Filled with looks
I tried so hard to cover me
Loss of sight it very well caused
As I sit in darkness
My confusion cooks
I know the truth
I want my sight back
To read and write
more books
I fall asleep a pounding in my heart
I don’t belong here
Up too high with an empty start
I must descend to show the earth of my content
That the Fire has disappeared from the hearths
The light has come on and I find nothing
Except a sharpie, moving
Rolling over
Stops with a start
I pick up the sharpie
I look at the walls
They are so plain
Inner demons I can slay
All through ruminating about today and the next
I take my marker
Filling the rest
Symbols and letters not coherently bound
If this tower crumbles no one will see
This rage of pain
ugly beauty
I get tired amongst harsh words with no purpose
This is the state I live in
The state of the foolish
I crumble onto the floor
Why don’t I know what I want to say anymore?
The sun goes down
The air is sharp
Like glass I started stuck as
Trying to close this stories arc
There’s one thing left
One thing you see
Where can I live and create my own
Identity
No more worrying about others fears
The clock ticks once
For everyone
I need to part
I need to be
I can’t run downstairs
I’ve done a good job of locking myself up here
I’m frustrated
I’m beat
Just one more night
Till I reach validity
The fishes I hear from my castle afar
I wake up again to a sky full of stars
I’m in my room
That No one wants to see
I’m just here
Making art in my dreams
I hear their song at this moment
I hear the sea
The waves the crash
The rocks
The aftermath
I blink
I never had a choice
I kept sabotaging my voice
In the end I know where to go
It happens to be down below
One I will end up in, though clear it is not
I know I can’t lie
So the owls hoot outside my window
One last time
Looking down nothing is equal
I may not see time or life the ways others want to
I can’t appease them all
I never truly wanted to
In a tower above all else
We are all but from above
The only thing you see is a passing turtle dove
A writers false identity
They write one way but don’t always feel
That wholesomeness for others to see
In private we write anything
Guidelines be damned is what I say
Image isn’t everything
There’s nowhere else to be
My soul is ready my mind is set
I run down the stairs of this tower I make
Another step I can take
I will mourn the words of praise and hope
I still think
Varying things
Postitve negative whose going to count
Every attempt to get my feet on the ground
Be one with the others
Who use laptops and pencils
Able to erase
Whatever doesn’t please their mates
As I burst out so does the lock and key
I made these steps
To myself
To be
Barriers are broken
As the waves crash and pull
I step in the sand
The water rushes from me
Chases just as fast
This is where I belong
No matter what I pass
The fishes and water
Welcome me home
I go out to the undertow
Beneath it isn’t dark the way we think
It feels calming
It feels easy
I feel free
I can rule myself
however I want
This is my peace
To be immersed in exploration
I need help through a journey
Of the worlds secrets
I can share mine with the currents rushing by
I just whisper and know
Water is necessary
When summer rises and the children play
Let my message be on display
A song to drag you in
Isn’t that true, for a writers purpose to captivate and push beneath the surface
The roots of the ocean
If people don’t care
Let it be
Rest assured
My thoughts embrace everything
Simply
Don’t travel
Across the water and ground
About something you’ve already found
You’ll just feel lost if you already know the pieces
You spoil the journey
Just have patience
Even through your yearning
The intentions are wild
Ripped and torn
Burned in fire
Words are shed
By making sure at some point they’ve bled
The smoke tornados around
I sleep peacefully
With the fishes
My heart and soul
Closing in on my riches
A Brick house that rebuilds itself
No matter what the damage
Only one person knows
Everyday The building implodes
This person is me
This is my plight
Rebuilding takes a long time
Too much damage has been done inside
The only reason I rebuild
Is for other people to be reassured
Strong people are easily ignored
If they saw the furniture ripped to shred
The holes from punching a door
The smell of smoke that suffocates me
People would get concerned
Only it’s them with whom they truly care
Guilt can be for selfish reasons
It drags you down no matter what
Feeling guilty for someone else
Is sometimes only for the good of yourself
Right/wrong
I like to think I’m different
But I’m not
We all have selfless selfish thoughts
So I write the wrongs
Figurative ideas, honesty that’s cutthroat
I’ve worried about suppressing and losing my ideas as expressed so far in this poem
As I love to put out ideas
Still, I feel not always proudly
Perfect isn’t up anyone’s ally
I long for it
I long to be seen
Just as much as the actors on screen
Sometimes I know I write too loudly
As I share my ideas, my curious passion
My problem is perfection
It’s a prison
The bars on my cell won’t let me listen
To me just wanting to write for me
In my mind i don’t always realize that
Not everything I write needs to be publicized
Let your own words slip through
In life, you should always listen first to you