Poetry Thursday: three

The Unsuppressable

We try to hold it together;
a finely orchestrated deception.

Believing no one will ever learn our secret
or our pain.

But the body knows.
And soon enough
weeds force and intrude between the presenting cracks;
A pestilence of pain
nurtured by a well manured inner self.

We begin to resemble an untended garden;
choked with wild plants and tangle bush,
a mood of rotten fruit;
prickly,
hardened and woody
like forgotten parsnips.

Even the birds avoid our slowly wilting selves,
preferring more joyful sanctuaries to linger
And we no longer care
....or notice.

So while we try to hold it all together,
to keep the secret of our discontent,
the body knows.
And screams it to the universe.

In the end,
though no words may depart our lips....
Everybody knows.

© Strauss
20th February 2007