Growing Pains

Every lesson I’ve learned

Has come with expenditure

I’ve eaten

Of sorrow’s lurid fruits

I’ve wiped sweat and tears

From a shadow-woven visage

I’ve suffered

And in the nucleus of strife softened

I’ve worn the faces

Of countless women

And the shoes of fellow drifters

I’ve faced both mirror and metronome

With a resolve to live and become

I’ve wasted and cherished

Chased laughter through open fields

Loved as if gripped by contagion

Sinned and served

Morals for which no law

Need profess and for which no law

Could deter if I determined

The deed in circumstance just

For I have the sense to know

Without threat or damnation

The ethos which governs my soul

I know that rebellion is essential

When governing bodies oppress

That true peace conceals

Neither arsenal nor agenda

I have failed

Despite endeavor

And in failing

Surpassed limiting contractions

Like can’t and won’t

I have survived

With the inconsolable notion

That survival

Is not enough

I have struggled forward

Knees, elbows, nail beds

Unclean

Every triumph

No matter how infinitesimal

Stacked on a foundation

Which I have built