The Same Coin
Inspired by Eliot Kirshner's https://substack.com/home/post/p-145782591 when he talked about the joy that Willie Mays brought. That being said, this following poem is not sweet but harsh.
The point of view in this poem changes a lot. Maybe that’s because I feel that we are all in this boat together, so may as well have several points of view.
This thing brings up suicide, so a warning and some understanding on my part on what it’s like to live with oppressive depression. I lost my joy several times. Most severe times were nearly 45 years ago, caused me to pick out an oncoming car to step in front of. That car happened to be slowing down to pick me up.
And the oddest thing, he was a man, middle aged, who had learned to live without joy. He said, “It doesn’t matter what you do, it’s all a huge mindf***k anyway.” Hearing that made something click inside of me. He took me home. I slept the night and hitched out the next morning. I got a close up look on a functioning nihilistic life and I wanted no part of that. I knew I could not sustain a life of what I felt to be a pointless fiction.
It was mostly up from there with a few dips back but never so low that I wanted to exit again, but low nonetheless, with bleakness all around. From that point onward a clock started in my head that said, “Just wait a while. Like when the fishing is bad. It’ll get better.” So I waited and waited and it always got better.
Since those earlier years, I have expended great effort in my spiritual/emotional life not just to prevent a return but to live a life where a return wasn’t in the cards, no matter what the cards were. That meant that most of the time, I wasn’t playing to “win”, whatever the hell that means, but just to stay in the game long enough to have enough for the next ante. That’s all I got on that. Here’s
The Same Coin
Joy is the hardest to hang on to
and the easiest to lose.
Everything tries to diminish it.
Even if you were fortunate
enough to have had
an untraumatized childhood,
then adulthood will take a swing,
a very large, very long swing
with a very heavy bat.
You can duck some of it
but you will get tagged,
one way or another
because no one’s vigilance
is equal to the ceaseless
predations of the bat
and by bat, I mean life.
I had to clarify
in case the bat
has already caught you
so many times,
and so unaware,
that it's hard to know
how scrambled you are.
We stagger from one blow
to the next,
with never enough time
to asses the damage,
to heal or even
to prepare for the next one.
I have prayed for the referee
to step in and end the fight
but he never does.
He just comes in, looks me over
and says, "You'll live."
I get the ten count, I hear a bell
and try to see,
as I stagger and sway,
what's coming at me.
That is when joy
begins flight preparations
and a very serious flight risk she is.
Bail cannot be set high enough but
who has ever successfully confined joy?
Somehow we begin to heal
during a beating,
that is what survivors do.
We heal just a little faster
than the injuries can arrive.
The alternative is to succumb
and if that happens,
joy’s countdown has begun.
Once you have seen her go,
the land around you
takes on a bleakness
well beyond your ability
to sweet talk yourself.
There is only one answer;
do what must be done
to get joy back
or depart your own self.
So, really two answers
but the same damn coin,
that when flipped says either,
"Raise up your head" or
turn tail and run.
Here's another survivor poem
https://westonpparker.substack.com/p/the-winners-circle
I risk my heart each time I read what you write. -(I do with Paul and Sherman, also - but since I see you through the eyes of an older sister, you can’t imagine how hard this strikes me).
What you’ve done here is reach into the souls who’ve been in dark places without doors, letting them know there is, in fact, a door to open, but also into those of us who love them and teach us that the pain of love never stops the fear for every one of you.
Oh, my heart!