Giving in to dysfunction, all at once alarming and comforting

Too tired to fight

Worn down from fear and insecurity
So depleted of energy that a complete surrender to dysfunction is a welcome break

It sneaks in with the feelings of complete and utter exhaustion

followed by defeat

Enters, the vice of choice

What have I done? How did I get here?

Let go of the punctured life raft
Slowly sink to the bottom
Watch the surface drift further and further away
The peace and calm, a warm welcome from the turbulence on the surface.

Oh the attraction and familiarity of the dysfunction!
With its’ muted silence
The loudness of the struggle has has been muffled

Unaware of habits gradually created and hidden.
Lives, souls, hearts, and dreams, lost
All professionally documented in high-def
in medical journals, news reports, movies, and books.

Self-help
Change perception
Choose happiness
Talk to the doctor
Take the pill
Do yoga
The temporary relief feels good

‘This is as good as it is going to get’ is the self-talk needed
to give up
to no longer be accountable
to believe this is all that is deserved

Self-preservation triggered
How
When

When did the legs begin to kick
back to the surface
Love and stay
or
Live and go
To abandon the punctured raft
to swim like hell

Survival instincts take over

True cause is no longer a burden to carry
Healing is in the honoring of the experience
and surrendering to the emotions
Exhaustion gives way to subdued acceptance

The survivors
Post-funk, happy and smiling
The real exorcism censored
The real journey only visible in the scars
A quiet reminder
To never to settle into the comfort of dysfunction
Until the next time.

“…it is not the most intellectual of the species that survives; it is not the strongest that survives; but the species that survives is the one that is able best to adapt and adjust to the changing environment in which it finds itself.” – Leon C. Megginson ‘Lessons from Europe for American Business’, Southwestern Social Science Quarterly (1963) 44(1): 3-13, at p. 4.)

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