What Hunts Me by Donna M. Monnig (NaPoWriMo)

What Hunts Me

It hunts me, my wasted, delayed life,
It hunts me, all that I’ve given up,
sacrificed, to be nice. Kind. Devoted. 
Loyalty really isn’t worth much 
in the end. 
What is? The answers hunt me. 
Life hunts me. Stress follows me
like a wretched shadow with claws
waiting to devour its prey – Me. 
Hope, a dim withered husk growing
ever more distant, impossible to reach,
a taunting, hunting wisp in the wind. 
Where could I be, had I not remained tied
to the choices of someone else? 
The answers hunt me. The pain of 
wasted years and wasted dreams
dog my steps like a seething wraith
out for blood – Mine. My soul aches
with burning sadness trapped within
the dark confines and cavernous cracks
of my ever more calloused heart. 
Time, wasted on someone else’s dreams,
cannot be bought again. Yet, I still waste 
it believing that one day, things will be 
different. Better. Good.
Happiness is a false notion promoting
delusions that it can be attained.
A fleeting friend that comes so briefly 
as to wonder if it had ever been there
at all, like a ghost, hunting the 
very soul. 
What is the point? The answer hunts me. 
Rhyme and reason defenestrated out of 
the window, indeed, if ever they existed 
at all – Ours is not to reason why,
perhaps our fate is but to wither and die,
hunted until the end by endless possibilities
never realized despite the very best
of intentions. 
It hurts to have dreams. 
It hunts me, the road not traveled. 
All the different paths just waiting to be 
availed, all of the many ships, waiting 
to be sailed. R.U.Me2? 
It hunts me. The life I could have led,
the life I still could lead. The pain of 
unrealized dreams, is intense. Letting 
go of sunk costs is pricey and not 
for the faint of heart. 
Hope is not for the faint of heart. 
Dreams are costly creatures that 
cost us our lives, often with little to 
show in the end. 
Thoughts such as these hunt my 
hypothalamus in the dim light of 
evening on days when life intensely 
demands more than we bargained for. 
They hunt me. What hunts you? 

©2024 Donna M. Monnig
4-19-2024

NaPoWriMo Day 19 Challenge: “What are you haunted by, or what haunts you? Write a poem responding to this question. Then change the word haunt to hunt.”