I Get Overwhelmed

I wish I had time

to think about Gaza,

bombs and bodies,

women and children butchered,

land that’s been disputed

for thousands of years.

I feel like screaming

“This world belongs to God!

And all of us!”

I wish I had time

to talk politics,

to feed the hungry

and house the homeless,

end war, end suffering,

give the hopeless hope

like arms reaching down from Heaven

in gentle rain and sunbeams

to hand fire and mana,

nectar and ambrosia,

but I’m dead and buried

beneath the dirt and mud

of children and divorce

in a stark mausoleum

of cold winter responsibility,

a mom whose mind

has become a leaky boat

wandering aimlessly

through battering storms,

a dead father

I never had time to grieve,

tears don’t fall

and the drought is starving me;

the tears have dried up

and the crops are dying

and infested with locusts.

I’m buried beneath

bits and bites at work

and billions of dollars,

revenues and obligations,

unpaid lawyers and unpaid bills,

the grime and sludge

of missed opportunities

and broken promises,

and I look for fixes

of music and poetry

in the soaring raven of night,

notes and words

that flutter like butterflies,

charge like angel armies,

burn like phoenixes

across the painted sky

of creativity and imagination,

blazing orange and yellow

in the broken sunrise,

trying to schedule sex,

praying for things

to fall into passionate place

just one more time,

fire blazing motivation

and freedom like an azure sky,

somewhere I can fly

just one more time,

to help me wrestle

the unforgiving demons

of early morning loneliness,

postponing love

for some later unknown date

as it hides in the fog

like a far off lighthouse;

I only see the faint memory

of a dream of light,

a light I know

I will never reach.

So I wish I had time

to ease the problems of the world,

to let them find a place

in my cluttered sinking mind,

to give them space

in this dying star of a heart

which is imploding in on itself,

becoming a black hole,

but the space is taken,

overwhelmed

with the struggles of my own life,

these ropes and chains,

this prison cell,

and now it seems

I’ve been given a life sentence.