Paralyzed by my hate and anger

paralyzed by my hate and anger 

There are those very few days anymore that I can wake

up feeling normal knowing that everything is going to

be okay for at least that one day anyways, when I know that

another dawn is coming and what I mean by that is, in my

life that I now live they are very far and rarely ever seen,

when I can open my eyes in the morning, from a very restless

night of sleep to the beautiful bright rays of sunshine

shinning its warmth down upon me, causing an unexpected

smile to spread across my face with feelings of unfamiliar

calmness and deep-down inner peace, which starts my

mind searching to find and play hidden movies of precious

memories that were thought long ago erased, filled with

nothing but beautiful scenery and happy people looking so

much like they are famous actors who are acting out a

scene upon a lighted stage somewhere in well-known play,

reminding me of some other place far away, way back in

another time a separate reality that I had felt so alive

knowing only happiness and so very much joy with a feeling

as if I could live on forever, but we all know today at this very

moment that forever is just a lie,  like that person whom I used

to be the very same one it is that I shall never see again

for those days are long over a very small moment in time 

buried deep in the toxic clouds of darkness that had been

carried in by the angry winds of guilt by the storms of deep

unending sorrow causing the raging floods of much regret

to come crashing down spreading chaos everywhere then

destroyed by a losing war that had been lost before it had

ever began battling an enemy that you cannot see of invisible

faces who are living inside of me, fighting every day and night

just to stay alive then raising the white flag up surrendering

to the army of addiction that was built by years of infidelity

broken hearts, deceit and lies, buried by all the decisions

that I had never made, paralyzed by my hate and anger that

had closed my eyes to the hidden truth of my own lies as I

gambled and threw away my life while I was fighting demons 

who were only on my side betrayed by an angel who had hid

its face whose wings held an evil who was in disguise made

up of greed that was never mine to take so here I am

an eternity this is where I will stay locked away in a cell

built by all my life’s own mistakes sentenced by a jury of

those voices who are only in my head found guilty of all

my sins, now watching through a one-way mirror

my close ones suffering through a life of unimaginable

hell, unable to help them as they fall screaming out at

the top of my lungs as loud as I can punching the windows

only braking my hands wanting to get out to help them

or even letting them in here with me but it is always the

same no way to save them just a few seconds to late
always just out of reach to late to preach feeling like
a parasite a leach in this life feeding off my own 

emotions and feelings of sorrow regret and the loneliness of

missing my dying soul and all my boys. 

Poet Richard M Knittle Jr. 

A Poet's Journey

Texas Poet Laureate Nominee 2016-2020