Some days

Some days when I wake up my heart aches and I feel a pain I cannot explain as it isn't physical in nature but rather is emotional pain.  It tears at my soul trying to stop my heart from beating anymore.  I can only hope that one day when I am older not near 50 like I am now but in my true elder years it will stop hurting so much.

You see there is a spot in me that feels others pain not just my own and when they are hurting it burns deep into me like nothing I have ever felt before.  From a young boy it seemed I couldn't escape that feeling that others pain was mine to bare whether I liked it or not.  As I grew I watched those I loved who were a lot older suffer and pass on eventually and it left an indelible mark on me. 

And now that I'm older I feel my time coming for that pain with a hope that when that time comes, I will no longer bare others as well because it may just be too much for my body to handle.  Since I have had health issues most of my adult life that most people don't feel or see until they are in the late to middle 40's I had in my mid 20's.

To watch friends and family being hurt emotionally for me over the years has left me scarred and bruised inside.  I know it's a perception but as I have said, for me since I was a little boy, it seemed my job to take their pain on.  From when my parents fought and I was alone with one or the other they used my quiet nature to air their grievances about one another.  To my Grandma's pain reminding them about how I look like my Grandfather's at least in their eyes, one passed the year I was born and the other the next year.

I just always imagined how much it must pain them to keep seeing me around but at least one of them as I got older didn't seem to dislike me for it.  She went out of her way to make me feel loved and cared for when most treated me badly.  I could always feel their pain but couldn't seem to take enough of it to ease the loss of their loved one I never really knew.

Why do I feel it still you might ask me if you could, I just cannot explain it.  But as people poured their private fears upon me as my quiet shy nature seemed to beg them to let it out I was too quiet to ask them to stop.  From childhood through the Army, college and even now at times some take it as a sign to let it out.  And sometimes when I get them alone I feel impelled to ask because I can just sense something not right about them, I can't help myself.

Some people call it a gift but if they had to deal with all that pain people try to hide inside from others they might just understand that this gift isn't a good thing when you can't take it on and then let it go.  I take it inside trying to release them from their pain so they can go on with their life as I slowly die inside.  And the number of times I seem to have cheated death in my real life begs the question of whatever God their might be...Is this what I am meant to do?  Is there more I can do before I die?  Are my words of poetry enough to keep someone else from hurting themselves?  Do I have to sacrifice my entire soul before I leave this world?