The Art of Getting By

The pressure compresses me tighter together,

like a screw being forced to turn;

resisting but complying with the force.

Years of pressure build and I get by,

but with what damage?

Searching in an empty mirror warrants little relief 

and less answers.

Try and get by quietly and you are blinded

by what you couldn't see coming.

Long hours full of aching for a purpose

keeps me numb and closed from what should matter

but somehow just doesn't.

I try to stretch a little further,

and suddenly my ropes have tightened.

I wiggle with a sense of abandonmen; disownment,

or maybe with the scared reflection that I have never been known;

that I have never even found what is supposed to be touchable, existing everywhere.

How can one belong truly in a place when they are simply surviving, enduring;

their roots being torn out as soon as they try to grow in promising soil?

I am only an apprentice, never a master,

learning the humble art of getting by.