It Isn't Growth Without The Pain Poem by Francisca Darko

Is waiting a part of living or dying?
Because when the clock hands stop turning
and the mind stops remembering
It's hard to know if this so called life is worth living
Or if this life is just waiting
And waiting
To begin
For something better to come
that just doesn't
And something bigger
that just isn't
But see I'm ready for an end I can't see
An end too far away to believe
in
But my laces were tied before I left the ground behind
And the straps of my rucksack I hold in my hand
are tight
and pulling
and waiting for my first steps to a journey that's incomplete
For the fork in the road that never meets
I have a smile that's a disguise
of everything that's twisting inside
I look into your eyes and all i can say is

It isn't growth without the pain

I'm leaving now but I'll be back again
And again. And on time
to see that smile that travels the miles
that keeps us apart
and God knows I'll be back again
to see those eyes engraved in my heart
Those eyes that have the world left to gain
again and again
It isn't growth without the pain

Or have I already left the road?
Past the end all on my own
My feet too fast to notice
and envision
that the end brings more waiting
More decisions
Faces that I'm missing
the hugs and the kisses
and names long forgotten
and sounds already sorted
into files in my head
and drawers marked X
never to be opened again
and I'm waiting

Because the life left behind was so bustling
and lyrical
and busy
and unpredictable
that surely there is more to come
There has to be more to come.

The fear of the road ahead
keeps me tugging at my laces
which are nothing but thread
and lies
and a reminder
that no matter how tight and pulling
the straps on the rucksack I'm holding
they can never be tight enough
to hold together this word vomit that will surely occur
and not pulling enough to pull me all the way there
across the finish line

where you wait for me

or is it the starting line?
that I'm seeing
That I haven't completely resolved myself to stand at
They're calling "on your marks"
But I haven't found the mark at the start
I know where I need to be
right here and now
But is it where I want to be?
Those distant sounds
Are calling me back around

But I tell you my laces were tied before I left the ground
And the evidence of my tear stained make up was nowhere to be found
And I dusted myself off before anyone could see
That inside there's a space that's eating me
up
It wants to swallow me whole
But I've made sure that it won't
And I swear I'm standing at the start
where together splits apart
but I'm ready and I'm willing
Though I'm tearing
I am in this
to win

So it isn't growth without the pain
it doesn't hurt less when you give it a name
And I've spent so long just waiting
It's made me idle and hesitating
that when the gun finally sounds
my feet will be glued to the ground
my hair tied back and heaving for the long haul
and my breath already lost, not after but before
this journey that lies incomplete
with so many forks that never meet
this life that's taken its toll
again and again I'm repeating
that without growth
there is no living