Lay down arms

I find the mind so stubborn to hush.

Bribes to oneself are for nought,

Along with the promises that leak past fortitude's of self preservation.

For both brain and conscious know,

Such platitudes are recklessly done,

When perseverance is a word unpracticed.

If lips were tangible, a finger I would press,

In all skyward hope a gesture would cease the jumbles of nonsense more at home in a dream that I awoke from yet have not since escaped, than life.

Wrought to the bone have I been shaken,

With a need to anticipate the worst encounters,

Yet more rattled am I, like a stick along a metal gate, to be unaware of the pinpoint in time I consented to such thoughts.

Wrung like a used dish cloth by strong hands,

With every  subconscious effort to reminisce a forgotten past,

I grow tired with the battalions I muster to overcome the emotions that with every bloody war, become ever sweeter to glimpse.