The Duck Speaks - A Poem

Pain
By Jordan Ray

Have you ever felt pain like mine?
I don’t know where it came from
This cold wrenching in my gut
I’m not sure what caused it
I know that I hate it

The guilt
Which might not even be mine
The confusion
Which keeps getting worse
The tears
Which seem like they just won’t end

What about the hurt
That I might be innocent in it all?
Are you supposed to feel bad when you do the right thing?

I guess there’s a point in everyone’s life when you have to choose
between right, wrong, and that big de-militarized zone that we like to call the gray area

Gnawing
Crunching
Burning
Squelching
The ooze is like something crawled inside of you
Died
Turned into rot
And now shifts around with every thought

It makes your stomach move so you can make more tears
It makes your face wrinkle and your eyes go red
It makes your hair just sort of lie there
Waiting until you’re done
Waiting
Waiting
Until you’re good to go
Whenever that is

Why do we have this feeling?
What is it trying to tell us?
What lesson am I supposed to learn?

I hate it.
I don’t like the pain of having to grow up
It hurts too much.

People might call me emo
But guess what?

There’s a reason
I hurt inside
So bad
There’s nothing to do but cry
And cry
And cry

Then you wonder, what if I had done that differently?
What if I had made a different choice?
At what point was there no turning back?

I’d just like to say to you this:
What’s done is done.
Maybe it’s your fault, maybe it’s not.
But I know that there’s always someone to help you get through it
Always someone with the words
Wisdom
Or maybe just a great shoulder
That you can cry on

Sometimes you can’t see that shoulder
You feel some giant hand scoop you up
Hold you
Tell you that everything will be fine
Then you look down to discover you’re not actually 100 feet from the ground

But it’s still there

The one constant in the universe is change
So I can promise you this:
You won’t always feel this way.

That hand that scoops you up?
It’s got a name, you know.
Some call it family, some call it friends, and some even call it my professional psychiatrist
But those are just headings under a theme
The real name for that hand?
It’s love

Yeah that’s right
Cliche as it may sound
Or even if you don’t believe it
It’s true

It’s love.
The one thing that binds us together
Keeps us whole
Prevents us from spilling out in a mess all over the ground
The one thing that is always changing in really weird ways
Showing us another side of this
Helping us look on the bright side of that
Or letting us have faith in a person
Believing they can be better
It’s love.

And it’s always there.

Reach out.