Live Beyond the Suffering

He said it didn’t matter and determined to forget

He said it didn’t matter—it didn’t… and yet,

By eleven he’d discovered appeasement for his gloom

For the pain that drove relentlessly a boy toward his doom.

By his teens he’d found the needle and he used it every day

It helped him keep the silence of the words he could not say.

A half a century later, from a hard hospital bed

He let himself remember what he never could forget.

With all the disappointments and a lifetime of regret

The thing that didn’t matter had raised its ugly head;

From the well of his forgetfulness it finally had its say

He wept as he released the truth into the light of day.

Now he speaks of it with sadness and a little anger too,

For the person he thought loved him most is the one

 who put him through

The hell of molestation, the grief he couldn’t bear,

Now he tells his story and I hope that you will hear

The hope that lives forever in the message of a boy

Who tells you, please remember, don’t let the past destroy

The years that lie before you— Please give yourself the joy

Of freedom from the burden of a secret kept too long

And live beyond the suffering of another person’s wrong.