Trouble

Backpack and key, I walk out my door.
I cannot bear to stay.
Inward broiling, my core all at war...
It is a fateful day.
Walking, I see naught that, to me,
Will help me hold strongly on
To the weakening sanity none see
Shrinking till it is almost gone.
I get on a bus, I grab the lightrail,
Seeking for what I ought not.
The next station, something latches onto
My spirit and drags me off.
Benches all along the track I see.
On one, a woman who hurts
For what she has not inside.
Her lost expression, me, alerts.
"I don't know where I am," she says.
"I need to go to my home."
Name and number scribbled on scrap
She then hands me.  How far she's come...
With her permission, I call the number,
Knowing not what will ensue.
What I know is that letting God's daughter
Fend for herself, I won't do.
A lady answers. I tell her the tale.
She says, "She needs to come home.
"She's without her medication.
And is not safe, alone."
"I will get her there," I answer.
The call ends.  We start on our way.
Knowing not how far it is,
I feel we cannot stay.
Speaking to a passerby,
We have half an hour to walk.
But the woman is barely functional
She hardly can even talk.
I don't know what will happen,
But, haltingly, we begin.
Crossing streets and avenues,
The woman is wearing thin.
I am thinking we might not make it
No matter that we've tried,
When the passerby who gave us directions
Drives up to give us a ride.
The halfway house stands quiet,
When intercom I ring
But the lady's voice is grateful
That my suffering friend I bring.
The door opens, she shuffles in,
I turn and walk back to my ride.
Back to the station, then back home
I go, feeling quite different inside.
I had left to go looking for trouble.
I found someone in trouble instead.
By Heaven's Grace, from thinking ill
To saving a life, I'd been led.

Adam Scott Campbell

The Life of One

Hair droops down over her shaking hands.

She tells me, "It's been a rough day."

I have people to see, places to go

But something whispers to stay.

Darkness writhes within me.
Ever at mortal war,
I often don't remember
What I'm living for.
Traffic races.  Broadway and I-25
Is not my final place to arrive,
But a woman with cardboard beacon
Needs me to keep her alive.
No destination she knows how to reach,
God's daughter is here asking alms.
Now one who ever struggles
To stay sane... balanced... calm,
My brain invaded by sterilized blade...
God's own daughter suffering deep...
How can such a cripple as I
Shed light I never try to keep?
Friend and family...
I have what she has not.
Twixt my ache for this my sister,
A simple urge is caught.
I have not resources
To keep the world afloat.
No great hoard of riches.
No car, or jet, or boat.
But what I have, I give.
My paltry change, my poetry,
My homemade lunch as well
Some of my own tear-dusted story
To my sister I then tell.
A heart-felt hug she gives me
With tremulous smile.
Perhaps enough hope I've given her
To keep her going a little while.
Maybe I have a purpose
In seeing another suffer.
Maybe my Heavenly Father,
Himself, has wanted to hold her.
But to help me, He let me help her
While the world's heart grows colder.
Wars, stumbles, and pains
I didn't make undone.
But with change, words, and lunch
I helped in the life of one.

Adam Scott Campbell

We No Me

Two at one side.  I'm lost inside of
A broken burned heart all bound and tied.
There is none I can call my own.
I am alone. All alone. What I've known.
Half complete, an empty sheet.
A literary work of something incomplete.
Potential unrealized in anguished zeal.
Am I advantaged when I feel?
Two at another side I turn.
My solitary path I start to learn.
Know I well the lure of being numb.
To such relief I've been driven to come.
How may I survive when I've lost my way?
Perhaps I should long ago have chosen to stay.
I will use another pronoun to make survival for me.
We suffer. We are pained, we love, we bleed,
Me is now we.
Illusion of togetherness binds us to life, a flimsy tie.
Again we ask the question of why we choose to stay. Why?
Because there is still just one we, none else inside.
Alone inside, maybe companion we sought has ever lied.
Outer companion never was.
We made it up, just because.
We are alone.
If alone, then empty.
If empty, then dead.
War as always inside our head.
For the finding of companionship we have ever bled.
All over our body we view covered with tread.
Is this our tie to mankind instead?
There is no more me.
We are the Embattled We.

Adam Scott Campbell

To You

Filthy, wretched, never free.
All these things inside of me.
Diced, and sliced, and shattered soul.
Whenever have I been fully whole?

Completed, unseated, treated ill.
How can I truly want, self, to fill?
All my poison I ever go to.
I'm Never remade or healed anew.

Aching, I'm taking away my first stake.
My original gamble when I jumped in Hell's lake.
As I remembered I knew not how to swim
Memory of jumping has grown faint and dim

Mirror, mirror inside my heart.
Looking therein, I don't know where to start.
Wound and scar and blemish galore.
What is my purpose in washing it more?

What do I sow, what will I reap
From each new leaping? Will I, lessons, keep?
Where may I place this satchel of tools
Bought dear from wise men, and from one poor fool?

Answers will come to me in the end.
This I know. My thoughts will all blend
Until those thoughts become but one
Drop of wisdom to which I may run.

Thoughts of one filthy, poor wretched fool
Who's attempted to live by each rule.
Thoughts that now are sent out to You.
What are You feeling?
What will You do?

Adam Scott Campbell

Tarnished Purity

Where the deep reaches so far down
That its ending can't be found;
When the loudest word there spoken
Won't be heard for all its sound,
There is heard a gentle token
Of purest love long past awoken
Ever growing in richest ground.

Such rich ground, never known
Is home to great plants grown.
Such rich soil I have touched, felt
Deeply within, pure seeds I've sown.
Painful richness from when love will melt
By each hate-stroke 'gainst it dealt
Teaches deepness from being alone.

Something pure, something dead.
Two at war inside my head
Cannot, will not work as one
When there's much more will be said
Before this dead purity is done.
Every work of glory shun.
I, on dead purity, am fed.

What blade pierced me, all my body through
When I fought for what was true?
How did I crawl when I would bleed
More than my heart was able to?
Whenever has my most basic need
Grown most sweet fruit from my most weak lead?
What am I being asked to do?

To reach, tarnished, out to you?

Adam Scott Campbell

Words For You

Words on a page.  What will they do?

Reach into the darkest parts of you?

Look all around to see who you are,

Every gold treasure, and each faded scar...

Words to pierce you all the way through...

Words.  I know they can change you, too.

Words on a page that I've laid in store.

Words from a heart wishing to do more.

Words that have saved and also condemned

So many hearts with no way to defend.

Words that have mended, and also tore

Glowing soul tendrils that breathed in soul's core.

Words that have so much more to say.

Maybe there's something that stands in our way.

Some great future we wish to own

That, for some reason, we can't get all alone.

Won't come near, to hear, play, or stay.

Our greatest dreams are not ours, today.

Words that show you will hurt again-

Should you keep on as you did then.

No pressure that tears you asunder

Can ever force you to stay under.

The pains, your own weight times ten,

Are tied to their roots, from way back when.

Words written, hoping your hope doesn't die.

You would never grow if you didn't cry.

Tears within teach you how others feel.

Fears inside reach out to help them heal.

Maybe your hell helps them always try.

Can it grant a new hope's start in their eyes?

Words on a page, written in need.

Words changing something inside as you read.

Words wishing you see strength you hold.

Words able to warm up your cold.

Words able to grow flowers from seed.

Words of hope, hoping you'll heed.

Words on a page.  Words heart-meant 

Deep into your You have now been sent.

The embattled You waits no more.

I think it's time you walked out of your core.

Much of your spirit-coin has been spent.

Words for you.  Walk out,  

 And repair what was rent.

Adam Scott Campbell

Diamond

You’d forgotten your very angels.

They infused your dying soul.

They gave impossible comfort.

They renewed a wasted goal.

You remembered not their helpful hands…

Their unending, powerful love.

Their arms around your shoulders.

Fighting for your peak above.

Then it happened.  You fell, after coming so far.

It hurt so much you died…

The part of you that was learning, again,

To feel, to bleed, to cry.

So very often it happened

That you’d learned to shut out strife.

For all you gained, you lost- and more.

You’re scattered, scarred by life.

You haven’t quit- it’s not what you do.

You always pull you back up.

But you wish to tear yourself in pieces.

You’re poured a bitter cup.

What can you do? 

What should you do?

Can you, that cup, afford?

Can you take your heartstrings up in your hands,

And play a power chord?

Maybe the angels in your life,

Those who save your soul,

Can make triumph of disaster,

And pure diamonds of blackest coal.

Adam Scott Campbell

Condemned

My hands are clenched.  Fierce storms inside.
All jewels and prizes by my feet I've spied.
No way to reach out to take what I see.
Some glorious future that's meant for me
Waits for my reaching.  It is soon to be.

My hands are tied.  Great glory meant
By these bound hands cannot be sent
Out into the beautifully green earth
To show the depth, the height, and the girth...
To write of each soul's inestimable worth.

My hands have no strength. They've tried to write
To encourage each soul to fight for their light.
My hands, pained for evil they've done
In pursuit of what others, uncaring, call "fun",
Have lost so much that might have been won.

My hands ache.  A warrior's hands
Fight for survival as instinct demands.
Warrior's hands wanting to shed no more
Precious life-light out of anyone's core.
Hands praying their victims have faith in store.

My hands behind me, tied to a pole,
Never again to harm a pure soul.
Thousands all round me chanting my name
Wanting an end to me, bringing such shame.
Tis mockery to me; to them, a game.

My hands wrote the words that I see
Written on paper at my bound feet.
Words that were written in hopes they might save
Those to whom such words I once gave.
Now I feel naught but a poor wretched knave.

My hands, trembling, as my time nears,
Completely unable to wipe my own tears.
Tears through which I see the foul swords
Flashing in sunlight, soon to sever life's cords
I wonder, bleakly, whom shall reap the rewards.

My hands, with no soft hope to discern.
Then to my wonder, the blades, as one, turn.
Souls who somehow are here to me free
From cords of death that do bind me.
Tears clear from my eyes.  Now I, saviors, see.

My hands, freed, now wipe at my face.
These who love me, my saviors, my grace.
These I once hurt, each soul, every one,
Came to save me.  Wretched evil, undone.
Perhaps I am not destined to be done.

My hands reach to the jewels at my feet-
Words I'd have died for.  Truth made complete.
Then reaching out to these I caused pain,
I give my gems.  Greatest truth is made plain-
Suffering forgiven equals great gain.

Adam Scott Campbell