HELL

Not sure if I mentioned this yesterday, but I've got a Staples paper box full of journals and poetry spanning from my late teens till last year.  If I'd ever decide to write a "lifebook," this is where I'd get a lot of my material from.

Depression has always figured prominently in my life and here is something I wrote somewhere between 1993 and 1999. I sure wish I'd had the foresight to put dates on ALL of my writing!

All the way to hell and back,

That's my daily trip.

Each and every day

I catch a glimpse

Of hell on earth.

As I travel my world

Of grey and black

Flames scorch my feet.

Someday soon

I'll jump right in.

It welcomes me

With open arms,

Nothing's worse

Than hell on earth.

That was written after my sister died; her death triggered a period of deep darkness for me, and subsequently, a period of great growth.  It was through this dark period that I began to accept that my childhood was not a perfect childhood as I'd previously thought.  

Here is another, written in the same period as the above piece.  Like I said, a very dark period.

A private hell

Reserved for me alone.
I live here in this hell

In solitude.

No one grasps the depths 

Of insanity

That plague this lonely life

That is my hell.

I love a lone in this hell.

No company

To share my misery and pain.

I'm all alone.

This hell is so familiar.

I've lived here long,

Longer than a decent person should

Ever live in hell.

Hell evidently figured prominently in my psyche at that time! Definitely a result of my childhood religious influences.