Torment

Raffaello Ossola

I wish for heaven to reclaim my vision

For this nullifying darkness to end

Must I hold my flaws above my gifts

Lest I forget, for a moment, to be humble

Must I cling to granite and graphite

The poverty of genius is it a myth?

Can I write the way I smile

With every scintilla of my being

*

Must I eat only of embittered flesh

To be truly fearless

Happiness scares me the way it elevates

All that is within me buried

Can I write deeply from a greater height?

*

Is it thoughtless not to remake

When to breathe is so unbearable?

Is it okay to say I accept

When it is I who am mistaken?

*

Between one extreme and another

I slide quicksilver into a migrant cloud

There is no hero more progressive than sincerity

I am afraid of the lightening for it is

So unlike me to burn with a white light

So unlike me to stretch skeletal wings

In defiance of a prejudicial tempest

To say that I could means so much less than

I have done because I will not recede

In the face of my limitations

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Am I too hard on myself

Or do I eschew the legacy of being?

*

I wrote a discussion piece on Curious Flowers that kind of goes along with this poem. I am little confused today I am just not able to get a decent night’s sleep. Sam said I saw him last night and became really startled like I didn’t recognize him I don’t remember it though

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