My Darkest Hour
In my darkest hour, on my darkest day, where were you?
My phone calls unreturned, my questions unanswered, my invitations simply ignored.
When I needed a helping hand, a pat on the back, or just the sound of a friendly voice, where were you?
Perhaps you should have cared. Maybe I should have mattered.
This guilt has confined me to this faceless, four corner room, condemned, I am, to live in this self-imposed prison.
This guilt has accused, tried, and convicted me, forcing on me a life of absolute misery.
These spiritual, emotional, mental, and physical walls have separated me from society.
They have robbed me of all of my favorite pastimes and emptied me of my last remaining ounces of joy.
My bones feel limp and I groan all day long.
Night and day your hand weighs heavily on me.
My strength is gone as in the summer heat.
When I started to justify this erratic behavior with an irrational belief system, I knew I was in trouble.
When these insurmountable frustrations continued to mount, I should have sought help.
When these compulsory pressures ceased to let go, I should have knelt down and prayed.
When these thoughts of suicide began to creep into my mind, I should have begged for forgiveness.
Like a poison slowly snaking its way through my body, I felt more inferior and more worthless with each new day.
My once defensive reactions have ceased, I have simply lied down and allowed others to walk over me.
These molehills that I used to turn into mountains have now merely crumbled into soft piles of ash.
My bouts with anxiety are no longer dealt with but instead are simply washed away.
My bones feel limp and I groan all day long.
Night and day your hand weighs heavily on me.
My strength is gone as in the summer heat.
Gone was the ability to put on a smile or maintain any sort of proper appearance.
A semblance of a life not wasted was so foreign to me that it could hardly register.
Pent up inside was such an intense rage that had been without a release valve for much too long.
With the joy of life nowhere to be found, I gave in and surrendered to the devil.
Now that I’m gone, forget me, don’t you dare ever dwell on this day.
Do not mourn me now, or offer your condolences, or attempt to remember the good times we once shared.
With unreturned phone calls, questions gone unanswered, and invitations ignored, those opportunities were missed.
I must have done something so terribly wrong to feel so abandoned in my darkest hour on my darkest day.
This was inspired by Psalm 32:4.
Prior to about 2017, I didn’t include the Bible very much at all in my writing, but some verses speak to me more than others.
Written in 2012
Copyright, The Poetry of Bryan Buser