Life Is Hell

Sometimes life just gets you down,
going to sleep and waking up
and everything in between
is consumed with the single thought,
“I just want to end it all.”
It isn’t the thought of suicide
that appeals to the mind,
life or death – neither matters,
nothing matters when you’re tired of life,
when you’ve reached a place where everything is gone.
No job, no family, no place to call home.
Years of working yourself to the bone,
you have nothing for your reward,
you believed all along
that you would always have more.
You think to yourself, “It can’t get worse”
and your karmic wheel takes another turn.
Dumpster cuisine has a new appeal
as you scour the streets for your next meal.
A bath, a shave, clothes that don’t smell
you think might help escape this hell,
what you don’t don’t know, can’t realize,
is that your life is a state of mind.
You’ve fallen into a pity trap,
feeling sorry for yourself,
and you hope it shows in your desperate sighs,
you hope the ‘haves’ can read between the lines
that you’ve scrawled on your cardboard sign,
“Will work for food – Homeless – Hungry”
You want them to feel sorry,
to take on your endless pity
you want to be delivered
from your Hell of Nothingness
into the Halls of Plenty.
But without a change of mind,
if you go, and only raise your sights,
if you never, ever, realize
what pulled you to your depths,
every place you go
is Hell.

Sometimes life just gets you down
and almost suddenly
you snap out of the imaginary reality
that working for forty years,
maybe on the same job
or for a host of different firms
or learning new careers,
is such a tremendous waste of time.
You realize a new concept of freedom and happiness,
you see the walls that have been built
of bricks, and shrubs, and clothes, and cars, and plastic.
You begin to dream the forbidden dreams,
the dreams where you follow your desires
and just for once
you are happier than ever before,
and a weekly paycheck has no appeal, no meaning
because real happiness can’t be bought,
and everything that you’ve been taught
goes against the grain of your dreams.
If you’re brave enough,
or scared enough, or smart enough
to break the tidy mold of your life,
to realign your line of sight,
to discover a new reason to be alive,
then you have a chance to experience
what so many are afraid to dream.
But if you don’t act in this instant of sanity,
if you push it all away,
write it off as the fantasies of youth,
if you go to sleep before you write it down,
in the morning,
in the standstill of rush hour traffic
life will get you down.
And in the solitude of your misery
in the confines of your glass and tin monument,
your badge of imaginary status,
through your tears of silent weeping
you cannot see,
or know,
or realize
that you are in Hell.

Sometimes life just gets you down,
and everything you do,
everything you think,
everything you touch
turns into something completely different from what you planned.
You ignore the warning signs,
the whistles, the bells,
or even if you don’t,
before it’s all over
all you have is a pile of ash,
the remnants of a great idea gone bad.
The list of things that can go wrong
is about as long
as the list of things that can go right,
but on the bad days it doesn’t work to fight,
Cut your losses, stay at home,
don’t even talk to anyone
cause everything you say will be wrong.
The best thing you can do
is to get up on that black horse,
take a firm grip on the reigns from Hell,
keep your butt planted in the saddle of life,
and ride –
ride it to the very edge,
ride right into the face of death
and laugh in his face,
with the knowledge that today you are in Hell
and tomorrow,
tomorrow will never come,
and if you survive
you have won!

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