Lifeboat Poem by Seamus O' Brian

How do measure the ache of a heart?
Liters, pounds, light-years?

All useless.

A tectonic plate shifts
in the heart of a man.
An earthquake of pain.
Old news to some-
''I felt a wobble.''

But for a few, the building collapses,
a lifetime of living rubbled inside.

Shearing forces of living tissue
ripping apart a soul behind the smile.
Shuffle on, ruptured compartments,
sealed for the greater good.
Wounds are contained,
but the pain seeps out-
an inconvenient oilslick
on the ocean of souls.

Am I a demon
if you keep calling me one?
Is the smouldering inside me
really the product of hell?

Or is it the friction of injustice
waiting for a small draft of truth
to ignite it?

I don't know.

You were once my only friend.
How we laughed at the world!
On a lifeboat at sea
in the ocean of troubles
we danced and laughed
and faced the black menace
of a storm threatened future
with our tongues stuck out,
and the worries we shared only
tightened the clasp of our hold.

I see you drifting away from me now,
and I don't know which pain is deeper-
the distance between us,
or the choices that caused it.

How do best friends become
strangers?

As the wisps of fog chase
the distance between us,
I wonder if you can see
the tremor of my lips

''Just when was it that you found
another lifeboat
on this ocean of souls? ''

I missed it somehow.

Like so many other little things.