MY BITTER BLOOD

“If I had a formula for bypassing trouble, I would not pass it round. Trouble creates a capacity to handle it. I don't embrace trouble; that's as bad as treating it as an enemy. But I do say meet it as a friend, for you'll see a lot of it and had better be on speaking terms with it. - Oliver Wendell Holmes

Our lives are a curious mixture of the external and internal, the things that we experience from without, and what we are within. We process and we balance, we mix and try to make of the mixture happiness, even in adversity. The measurements need be accurate for one drop too much or too little will make the mixture spoil and our world collapses around us. This is a poem I wrote as I recovered from my black mood of late…

My Bitter Blood

My blood is bitter, and it percolates though my flesh,
Making me twisted, rancorous, acrid;
My words astringent spilling from my dry mouth
Like falling, wilted autumn leaves.

My blood is acid, burning and eating my tissues,
Making of me an empty, burnt out husk;
My feelings ashes, my emotions charcoal
Like the forest devastated by a wild fire.

My blood is salty, and it hardens my body,
Drying me out, parching me, desiccating me;
My eyes unseeing, blinded, destroyed,
Like a withered mummy in a sarcophagus.

My blood is sour, and it makes my bones brittle,
Crushing, making them acerbic, dissolving them;
My resolve exhausted, my fortitude weakened,
Like a pearl melting in vinegar.

My heart only stays sweet,
Its dulcet beating unaffected
By bitter, acid, salty, sour blood.
Love still nourishes it, saves it from adversity,
And makes me live, still;
Even if my blood is poisoned from without…


Jacqui BB hosts Poetry Wednesday