Failure V Strength

NaPoWriMo 2023, Day 21

Choose an abstract noun from a list ( I chose Strength and Failure) and then use that as the title for a poem that contains very short lines, and at least one invented word.

Ther are some pains that only the first-born can feel. They hang in there, stealing your breath and dreams – if you let them.
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It echoed
Through every fibre
Of his being like
A raucous chest infection.
Each wretched rib-wrack
A bone tolling bell,
Each peal, a life-aching reminder of,
His birthgift;
Her hellprize.

Guilt tailored his shame,
Failure decorated his pain,
Anger embellished her loss.

Gleeful party attendees these,
Hungry, hankering harpies
Salivating,
Savouring in anticipation their slice
Of destruction cake.
Hand-in-hand they danced,
Happy as candyfloss,
Festering, fermenting tormentors,
They nailed him
To his own cross.

Admiration, a soothing balm,
Her strength bequeathed him
Water-oiled calm.
Just.
Only just.
Her courage uncrushed
Her offspring’s vertebrae
That bore edgeless weight,
Around which sunlight
Never shone.

But he tried,
And tries,
Daily, weekly, yearly,
Always.
To deflect, to reject
The burning self-exposure,
The acid poisoning
The rusty scalpel incisions, of
Self-hate, and
Self-harm,
That ate at him,
Which he hated,
That hated him,
And consumed,
Him;
From the inside out.

Put down the cross.

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