Day 16: a subject I know a lot about...

[megwrites]

Day 16 Write a response to Day #15's poem


It's easy enough to laugh at failure
when you've held success's arm
and dosi-do'ed with victory long enough
that you barely notice the switch off

it's harder when failure is the only one who comes to sit
with you on the back stairs
where you hug your knees and stare out
at a world of what you can't have, don't have
where the doors close and gates lock and
when success comes out to call your name
like a nurse at a crowded doctor's office
you almost can't get up because
you're too used to the empty place of "no" and "sorry, not this time".

I have failed so much that I have forgotten
the art of the good old cry
My eyes can water for pain, for anger
but never too long
Because the minute I feel the choking hand
like an asphyxiating lover,
I cry out the safe words, "Don't cry, you have no right"
All too soon.

I am used to failure
And it is not as educative or instructive
as all those pithy sayings would have you believe
failure, like falling, hurts
hits hard, hits with your entire self
It's pain
And there comes a time when pain teaches you
nothing except just don't move. Don't try.

Sometimes success is not winning, but simply trying again