The knife draws across the skin,
the pain blocks pain from deep within.
Endorphin’s rush into the brain,
am I crazy? Am I insane?
An addiction forms and I know,
there’s no good place for this to go.
But how to stop when my soul hurts so,
I try to grasp I try to grow.
Loved ones help,
and form a shield,
for certain moments,
I am healed.
But the truth, the desire still persists,
the fight goes on, my brain insists.
This demon may fight me, scar me and shake me,
but I swear by god he will never break me.
———–
Afterthought from the author: I sincerely hope you have enjoyed reading this piece. If you have, please know that thumbs ups and comments are always welcome and absolutely make my day. Thank you sincerely,
Joshua Harestad
Poetry
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This is amazing. I love the details and the sensitivity to this pice of writing. I’m young and in love with this. Guess I don’t have to find anybody, except for your writing!
I am so glad you liked it. I know how hard the struggle can be. You are not alone. I will try an write more for you! 🙂
JoshuaHarestad, holy smokes! I’m not sure I’ve related to a poem so much. Thank you for sharing!
However, you might want to consider using more enjambment in this piece. I think with this device your poem could be even stronger and more sensitive. Another suggestion: in the second to last line, your “and”s sort of trip me up. They sort of seem to stop the flow you’ve had going on throughout the whole poem. Perhaps shorten the “and”s down to one?
I have another suggestion…but, I’m struggling with it. There’s this challenge my former creative writing professor gave me a while back: Stay away from vague words. In the case of your poem, vague words would be those such as “soul,” “pain,” “truth,” and “desire,” I was going to suggest for you to rise to the same challenge…but, the more I think about it, the more I disagree with myself. The struggle that you so successfully capture is often pretty vague. Sometimes you’re not sure how or why or when the pain began and even more so to figure out exactly where you’re hurting, so your use of vague words makes perfect sense and adds a really lovely vulnerable layer. Even so, I leave you my former professor’s challenge in case you’d like to play around with the direction for this poem for fun.
Thank you for the positive feedback. I made a few small changes to the poem, I hope you will like them. I may play more with your professor’s challenge in the future. Thank you!
You’re welcome! I’m always happy to share knowledge when I’m able.
I’ve reread your poem and nice work on regaining that flow in the second to last line! 🙂 Keep up the good work.
Wow! The way that the tone in this poem changes from defeated to defiant and hopeful really ties it together so nicely at the end. It has so much meaning packed in. I loved the line “am I crazy, am I insane” because the rhythm closes the first stanza so well and communicates to the reader to keep going. Great job!
Thank you so much for the positive feedback! I am glad you liked it! 🙂