Good Neighbors: 3. Wednesday

You can criticize my lifestyle, 

but you can’t embarrass me.

I see the way you look at me;
I get it: Addiction shows on my face and frame;
I feel it on my skin, it burns in my joints.

I’m in over my head; I can’t get free.

Maybe I’m not beyond rehab, but it hasn’t worked yet.

My sores get infected, but still I can’t stop;
my whole being is a like festering pustule.
All I can do is pick at myself
and feed the monster inside.

I’m a prisoner who wants to be free,
but I don’t have the strength
or will.

My family and friends have disowned me
—they either shun me
or talk about me behind my back;
they wish I would disappear.

I try not to hear their voices in my head;
I try not to shout the curses
that fill my withered heart.

I know I need help,
and I think I want help;
someone’s got to have the key
to unlock my iron cell.

The way things are now,
people seem happy at my failures;
I admit my weakness, and ask for help,
but they revel in their strength,
and revile me for my vices.

People who want nothing better for me
can only be my enemies,
can only do me harm.

Deep within, I want to find goodness;
I want to know what is good
and to be good,
to know a good life.

Please, don’t leave!
Please, don’t abandon me, like all the others!
Help free me from this cycle of pain!
Don’t let me go!

© 2015 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

This poem is part of a cycle based on the so-called seven Penitential Psalms. The subtitle of the cycle is “Psalms from the Streets”. This entry is based on Psalm 38, and could be subtitled, “The Addict.”

Good Neighbors: 2. Tuesday

They say you’re blessed when forgiven,
but I gotta say it:
Though I done my time,

            it seems like none forgave me.

I see other people who think they are better,
that they are outside of the rules
that hold me,
but they aren’t that upstanding;
it’s a bad joke.

When I was a young fool,
I struggled and I raged and I stole;
like I said: I’m not proud of what I done,
but I done the time for my crime.

What I seen in there,
it changed me:
it made me old,
it made me quiet;

Like an invisible hand on my shoulder,
it scared all the piss and bile right out of me.

You hear that?

I come out and I’m not afraid to tell what I done,
I am a different person, now,
and I want to be recognized,
to be known as new.

Do you hear that?

In the eyes of the law,
I know I am good, now—
they called it even and sprung me
—but no person will hire me.

That Power that changed me,
show Yourself, and give me hope;
that hope is where I hide my heart.
—protect me,
keep me out of trouble;
I don’t want to go back
to that other place, no more.

Hear me!
Hear me and preserve me!
Tell me, teach me, guide me
to a goal, a job, home;
help me to be useful,
and heal my soul
with true forgiveness!

© 2015 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

This poem is part of a cycle based on the so-called seven Penitential Psalms. The subtitle of the cycle is “Psalms from the Streets”. This entry is based on Psalm 32, and could be subtitled, “The Ex-Convict.”

Good Neighbors: 1. Monday

All you who pass by,
don’t judge what you don’t understand.

Please, don’t walk away;

        Any small amount would help
            a homeless,

        hungry

and sick-to-my-very-bones me.

My soul suffers, and has for a long time;
how much longer can I hold on?

You could stop, you could help;
you could save me, for Humanity’s sake!

Instead, you just walk on by;
you show me your back.

           Words of gratitude are not spoken by the dead,
but I might sing your praises

           if you’d relieved my dread;
any small change could help.

Riddled by sleeplessness,
           I drench my tattered coat in tears
that could flood the very streets
           with a river of my shame.

My eyes are weary,

because I fear for my safety.

You’ll ignore me and move on,
            but what goes around comes around;
your indifference will bring the shame on you.

© 2015 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

This poem is part of a cycle based on the seven Penitential Psalms. The subtitle of the cycle is "Psalms from the Streets." This first entry is based on Psalm 6 and an all too familiar passage from Lamentations; it could be subtitled "The Homeless."