*This poem is a part III, to a series I have started for events in my life, called To Plant the Memories Like Seeds. Check out the first part, Chain-Link Fence*
He was the fourth in the bloodline
of strength, his father’s pain
passed down from his before him,
lost in the vicious cycle of addiction.
An honorable man, planted and raised in
a broken home, grew above the tarnished
ground walked upon from birth, molded himself
into an expectation of his own.
But success does not detract the
demons living in a brain that forgets nothing
and forgives less, only forgets long enough
to accomplish what was once viewed as
impossible from the fourth in this bloodline.
An intelligent man, overfilling a mind
hungry to lose the memories clouding
his vision on days the past creeps in
like a fog over the trees.
An accomplished man, suffering in a
world unfair to him from the beginning,
drowning in the poison downed for
the silence in the numbness.
Convinced by the enticements of a
blank slate, he succumbed to a monster
that holds him by the throat, and blinds
him from everything he no longer wants
to see.
Check out my new book Penny Poetry, now available on Amazon!
Marysa Writes 
💔💚
LikeLiked by 1 person
This is absolutely heartbreaking and it is a devastatingly accurate depiction of addiction.
“he succumbed to a monster
that holds him by the throat, and blinds
him from everything he no longer wants
to see.”
My heart dropped at this stanza. It’s a monster that trails even worse when it lingers or follows from our own blood, from what we may have seen ourselves and known. When I was finished reading, I looked up for a moment and went, “Damn.” I was pretty stunned, and it’s been too long a while since a poem has made me feel that very way today.
Bloodlines as an indicative of our (familial) past/history do not always decide our future (it is still a factor of course), but as you say, they bring up vulnerabilities with thoughts and memories.
“He was the fourth in the bloodline
of strength, his father’s pain
passed down from his before him,
lost in the vicious cycle of addiction.”
A stunner of an opening, bursts with rawness at the first two lines. The reader is thrown right in. My hat is off to you, poetess. This is a topic that really needs more awareness and the way you describe it, as I said, is heartbreaking. A very beautifully written and honest piece. ❤
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you.. i genuinely really appreciate it. It helps to write with things you have direct experience with..
LikeLiked by 1 person