Unique and Perturbed

She stares at me and asks me well,
What is it that causes you such anguish, such hell?
I respond with anger, a flare of rage,
How can you ask such a thing from a page?
I spend my days speaking and talking,
I spend my nights waking and walking,
I cannot find peace or quiet at all,
No one understands! And so often I fall!
I am an introvert, yes this much is true.
I am not like anyone, no, not even you!
I need my space, and my time alone.
Lest I do something which needs atone.
I am melancholic, and often despair.
Yet of this melancholy am oft unaware!
I am choleric too, which doesn't help.
Am often treated as a mongrel, a whelp.
I want my way, and oft don't back down.
So often the mirror reveals my frown.
My sorrow increases and multiplies,
For I am obsessive! And my heart replies
To a mild and mediocre soul
With the full fury of the summer sun's toll!
Thus, driven between the poles of emotion
I have too many a strange devotion.
I stay in no place long.
I feel I am all wrong.
One day I long for love and sex,
The next day this very thing doth perplex.
Another I'd love a cloistered life.
Yet the morrow such thoughts bring me much strife!
Driven on in such a frenzied state
I am often filled with sorrowing hate.
I long for peace, yet I find none within.
I am often driven about, and so sin
Where the better answer would be to pray;
I beg God, not another day
Of this misery, of being myself,
To search for (as my wealth)
A state of mind that is content
And finding often only a mind that is bent...
She looked at me, with a sigh (most bemused)
That suggested to me my words had abused
Her contentment and peace of mind;
In others I often do something find
That causes me grief in having discussed
With others my problems. Yet I must
Wait for her response to know
Whether inside doth resemble her show.
She said introverts have a hard time,
They need their space in order to rhyme.
Melancholy is harder still to bear,
Many in sorrow have torn their hair
And little can be said or done to console
A tormented and self belittled soul.
Choleric minds have some advantage though,
At least they know what they know; although
They could stand to listen and learn
Lest in isolation they forever burn.
Obsession is something to forsake,
But it takes time, and the heart doth ache;
For pendulum's swing, and only with age
Comes the ripening of fruit, or spicy sage.
Now I ask the question, what's the answer?
Time she said, time cures such a cancer.
Yet I am ill content at this, for s'wounds!
What if such a thing can't cure the wound?
She answers, such a passage is only a part
Of what is necessary to cure your heart.
Prayer too is necessary, for sure;
So pray from the ache in your heart. A pure
Heart create within me O God,
That onward in life I may plod.
I beg not another day of myself!
My worst enemy, the cause of ill health.
I'll turn to others, and work in the land;
Procure for others with God's loving hand.
But in the mind, do not trod long my friend,
Lest you in the mind think yourself to an end.
But what when I tire of others company?
Said I to the woman who replied gently.
You will know what to do, you will!
You must trust yourself, whether the hill
And be at peace with fortune's fair chance;
In  life we must learn to join its fare dance.
Upset I may be at what was said,
But later I thought, when I went to bed,
That what she had to say was true...
Perhaps I could learn to be a bit like you.

                         Unique and Perturbed (c) Luke Bennette, March 2013