I wish I could remember the year that I wrote this poem. Not so much that I could point to that year and say exactly what prompted me to write it, but more so that I might see more clearly the past. In many ways we all do something like this with our past pains, troubles, angers just so we can put them somewhere out the way. Somewhere where they can’t hurt anyone including ourselves ever again …. I offer it not because I have any plan on opening them here. No, that would give you too much insight on the man that moves their fingers over the keyboard and posts here. Maybe someday over time you might find one or two opened and poured out here for your disapproval but until then remember I have never let anyone person know any more about me than I have allowed. Sure I know a few that have discovered things about me that even I wasn’t aware of. Then again who hasn’t had one or two people show us something we didn’t know we were capable of. To those few I tip my hat and ask for their forgiveness. I don’t ask this because they showed me something I didn’t know about myself. I ask it because I already have their disapproval and for that there is little for them to forgive and too late for me to get.
Bottled Up Inside
Twisted and turned around
Down inside all covered up
Becoming too deep to wade through
Lower the level to keep from drowning
Pour it in the dark brown bottles
Cap them as tight as possible
Label them individually with the pain
So they will not be forgotten
Peel off the labels like the others
Lock them all up with the rest
Someday maybe it can be opened
All the bottles taken out again
Sorted through and then divided
Small to large or large to small
It doesn’t matter how they are sorted
In time maybe we can coup with it all
Open a bottle or two and throw a party
Or just smash them together at one time
Let the images and pain flow back in
What the hell it doesn’t matter just now
Too much pain for now to bother
Until then it’s all bottled up and locked away
W. M. Stahl
Round and round he speaks about somethings that aren’t being said. Sure I know, but what can you do from there to stop me? Would you even want to if you could? Would you even care if I didn’t? Perhaps these are questions best left answered by those that would answer them and not by me.
From The Strange Mind of Me 