Languishing? Experiencing "Low Grade Mental Weariness"?

 

Languishing crept in after a period of extreme stress, grief, or lonliness-a sense of low grade mental weariness that can be easy to dismiss, especially since indifference is one of its symptoms.

Languishing puts you squarely in the present and makes you aware of all that is going on around you, but it's not mindfulness; it's hypervigalence. In moments of pause, it starts to feel like you aren't really living like you once did, and too many things feel out of your control. 

Corey Keyes

If I am being completely honest with myself I have to admit I am not happy.  I am languishing in a muddy pool of discontent.

..as soon as I wrote those last few words...I heard "Poetry time!" in my head lol.  

Without further adue...I step away and let whatever this is do its thing: 

Languishing

Languishing in a muddy pool of discontent, 

my body clock ticks and tocks

in awkward sporadic movements. 

The slightly warped second hand can't keep up

with the butterfly movement of Life

that flutters beyond my grasp.

The malfunction goes unnoticed. 

The busy world  walks over me

as another hour, another day

and another year  

flitters beyond my reach.

Water log?

A rusty spring in the internal mechanics?

May be these are the causes of my disturbance?

Or maybe it is the dust of a heavy life

that has been trapped for so long

beneath this cracked and creased face 

I call "me",

that makes me lag behind the world?

Or maybe this mechanical failure

is due to the place...

where I strangely find myself 

drowning in this discontent?

How did I get here?

I don't recall falling from 

the comfortable pocket of safety 

I once claimed as home,

through the hole that was always there.

I don't remember dropping with a splash 

into this uncomfortable and wet unknown

but regardless...here I am.

I wonder, as I bob in this pool of muddy water

thick enough, it seems, to pull me down

below the murky surface,

if there is a spring missing

or a nut or bolt loose in the center 

of this human known as "me"? 

I still tick and tock...tick and  tock...

but I can no longer make sense of the rhythm... 

a few missing ticks and a few missing tocks,

a broken sound deafening to my ears

but unheard by anyone else.

No one notices my nosiy, delayed existence.

They trudge through Life's many puddles,

disturbing the waters on which I bob,

with their dirty rubber boots

that tramp about, keeping up 

with circadian rhythms,

so unlike my own.

I swallow the effect of their momentum,

choking on it,

ticking and tocking in my unusual way.

Surely I will drown.

I close my eyes,

I long for the silky threads I once read about

to emerge from the lotus flower,

a flower, I am told, that blossoms in such places.

I pray that if such a thing exists

it finds what is left of  this mechanical "me",

that its feathery strength reaches out to cradle 

this broken form in a protective hold

that will save it from drowning 

in its own malfunction.

I pray for something to rest my weary being on

as this casing  ticks and tocks 

in anyway it can

until it ticks no more.

I pray for a rescue  much greater than 

what can be offered by a human hand

or a watchmaker's tool.

I pray for freedom from my 'self'.

 © Dale-Lyn (Pen) February , 2025

Don't judge lol...it just came out.

All is well!