And Then What?

I am convinced that no one is so tough
or at least
no one is tougher than life
or life itself
because, safe to say,
life is tough
or perhaps I will say,
life is tough enough
just to live and breathe
or get by on your own.

I remember the old Mayor of NYC
and his question, “How am I doing?”

Well . . .
How are we doing?
Not so well, it seems.
Or
maybe we are better than ever
and our perception
is subjective and relative
to how we see things.

No one is tough though.
Not really.

Do you know what’s tough?
It’s tough to hear
the sound of a child
while screaming from another room
going through the MRI machine
begging and pleading
or trying to negotiate
some kind of release
or at least
an early dismissal—
But no.
The justice warriors
were elsewhere at the time.

I heard the child
pleading with pain
and shouting out
about how it hurts
begging and saying
“I want to go home”
he said,
I’m all done
and
please,
this hurts!

I am not tough
I am not tough enough
to handle the sounds
of a child’s cry
but I can standby
and remain
if I have to.

I am not tougher than the relentless sound
of beeping sound from the MRI,
while standing out in the hallway, thinking
hold on tight, kid.
The ride gets bumpy from here, but
then again,
I am sure the child already knows this
all too well.

The subject of pain is subjective,
yet I can see the pain in my reflection
and I can see the fears
and the cobwebs of my history—
smoky and misty,
like old and ghostly soldiers
going through my war-torn battlefields
and limping from old wounds
like the dead
of both Union and Confederate armies
haunting and walking the grounds
of an everyday appearance
and asking “the living”
when the hell
are you ever going to learn?

The truth is,
I don’t know
when
where
or how we will learn.

Perhaps I should modify my gameplan
and change my narrative
so that my old soldiers can rest
from my battles
that never needed to happen
in the first place.

I swear . . .

Everybody is recovering from something
and everyone has had a battle or two
or maybe three or four
and from this,
we can say that such is life
and such are the unfair memories
that leave behind the marks
or resurrect the recollections
of the fact that life is always happening.

No one is so strong
or tough
or wealthy enough to pay off the pain
and make it go away.

No amount of money
can change the results
when it comes to our health.

Hold on tight.
The road gets bumpy
and so will the news you get
from the doctor
when he says, sorry
I don’t have anything great to tell you.

Man . . .
I hate feeling helpless.
I just wish I could take it all away.

Know what I mean?