There's no cake without an oven

Have you ever had that feeling
where strength fails you in the end?
Where you’re lost and all is hopeless
just before you turn the bend?

Here past pain creates a curtain
that allows in only rain.
Words of comfort and compassion
get rejected all the same.

Those same old dreadful feelings
engulf your very being.
The answer as you see it is to flee
from what you’re feeling.

You want to put an end
to this sense of deep despair.
To find some self respect
in the remnants that lie bare.

In truth it is these moments
that form thresholds in your life.
Where the wheat and chaff are parted
and that does create much strife.

But as the wheat it is collected
in that suitcase by your side.
You find new options there aplenty
how to use them, you decide.

But there’s no cake without an oven,
no bread without much kneading.
There’s no advancement in our lives
that does not require some ceding.