Let me tell you a story, about Sisyphus the Greek

Once cursed to Hades, where the black winged demons shriek

Where the hellfire’s climb higher and the sanity wanes

Where love vacates you heart and blood vacates your veins

A mountain of sheet rock and Sulphur slumps all on its own

Housing only one feeble King and his bothersome stone

His curse is quite simple, but not lacking innovation

A maddening task defines his damnation

Push the grand hunk of granite up this sad little hill

And consider your soul blessed again with free will

No matter how hard Sisyphus

Clawed,

Shoved,

Scratched,

Pushed,

Tasted the hairbreadth of difference between him and success

He failed.

As per usual, I’m going to make this about me, Megan Marie.

Who, as you can see,

Is quite astute at A. talking,

B. Yelling,

C. Bellyaching,

D. All of the above

I carry my on rock, plot twist.

It’s small, awful, about the size of my fist

It clumps in my throat at every social function

It twists my tongue in at every turn and conjunction

No matter how much that barrier becomes sickening, fat, and vile

No matter how hard I push it back into a stomach drenched in bile

It won’t disappear, it never breaches the hill

And in turn, off my tongue jumbled words still spill

It’s catching up for years in hibernation

Inside my own private social damnation

Called Middle School.

I can tell you Greek myths as much to your heart’s content

But there’s no possible way I can describe in this lament

That great hunk of dread at the words “Pair up with a friend”

Or knowing you won’t be seeing anyone after a school years end

Or a social event to which everyone is excited,

You’ll hear I meekly add I wasn’t invited.

Now I’ve gotten better, don’t let this poem get you down

Each day I put on my smile like a good little clown

I joke and I tease and I love all my friends

And even those I don’t love I’d take a bullet for in the end

Because everyone deserves to have someone that cares

Under layers of positive hides the loneliness and despair

I can see behind your mask, as a fellow survivor,

How you’re barely hanging on, barely alive or

How you have old social scars, just like me

The healed, warm, and loved Megan Marie.