Sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly

Shell shock is no different to addiction and depression
the trauma that we have seen triggers
a constant need to undo
feeling of painful loss.

When we are bitten by a gnat
we are tempted to grate at the displeasure
and while we know it’ll make things worst
the pleasure of relief
however temporary
is far greater.

Some of us scratch until the infection
becomes such a ghastly affliction
that our friends and even our family
turn away from
in disgust.

Procreation and destruction are built into our cells;
these are the two elemental forces in the universe
one draws matter towards matter
the other tears matter apart.

Every planet and every star
is not only drawn to the others by gravity,
it’s also pushed away from them
by force of repulsion;
we can’t see it in the stars
but we can in each other.

It’s there
like love and hate
life and death
there to provide the eternal question…

Within every organism
the destructive force is what drives an animal to seek death
like a fly instinctively gravitating towards a neon light.

This isn’t inquisitiveness
this is purely a pursuit of death.

Perhaps it knows something we don’t
that life is meaningless
but try as we might
we cannot cure an instinct.

It cannot be eliminated
but we can be more conscious of it
to relieve its torment
and its pathological effects.

An addict searches for his first high
the gambler seeks the reward of his first major win
the alcoholic longs for the joy of the teenage buzz
the war victim reaches out to sparks in the darkness
as the obese wish to fill the hole in the soul
but all these pursuits are empty
fuelled by the master of despondent dependence;
fear.

War, drugs, drink and gambling;
man-made
of this earth
placed in our paths
by fiends and friends
to destroy through annihilation
the sensitive suffering
of trauma unresolved.

A third of all gamblers
and those consumed by wars past
crucify themselves;
suicide.

Over half of addicts and alcoholics
die from abuse
however long it takes
and yet mankind still insists
on their persecution
absolving itself with the convenient lie
that they must have chosen their paths.

To evaporate trauma
requires truth
but that’s the last thing a sufferer will look for
without help
and families will shield that truth from him
for their own ends
which leaves only one alternative.

Abstinence.

By suffocating the option to relive
the nightmares of trauma
as relief
we return
sometimes slowly
sometimes quickly
to ourselves.

People know a miracle
when they see one.

Of all the treatments
I have found that belief in a higher power
or God
to be the best and only trusted ally
to abstinence and love.

While I am certain that He works through people
when belief is assured
He will work through every person on the planet
and cure even the miserly of their misery.

When a sufferer reveals his own truth to others
those around him can happily cast aside
the veil behind which they too suffered.

And who would have thought
that an otherwise hopeless addict
could completely cure the inward cries
of his outwardly healthy sister?

Madness!

But the madness is in the disbelieving
and who can honestly say
hand on heart
that the universe whistles around
without governance
from one celestial cesspit to another
when we can look across a bay at dusk
the sun making way for the moon
children still playing in the sand
as a man cries
at a table?

And who’s to say
they are not tears of joy?