backbreaking, heavy
seeking proximity,
to those who understand there’s pain,
know it can’t all be pretty,
removing their blinders,
they have the will to see
all the worlds around them,
joy and beauty,
intermingled with fire,
depth, wounds, agony
guilt, abandonment,
attachments formed within,
informed by our parents
at the earliest age,
informed by our peers
in our vulnerable years,
informed by society,
cruel lies that it tells
stigmas, poets have them,
bleeding hearts, depressed
unless we choose to
write about nature or art,
we are desperate for love,
in all the wrong hearts,
torturing our minds
with intensity unmatched
this is all just labels,
every poet knows this best,
we are the voices of the voiceless,
writing words from bleeding pens,
and if that makes me a stigma
in society’s fake “Zen”,
let it be, let rain come
like cleansing drops from heaven.

Emily Cloward © 2018