Patterns, cycles, programs, that time won't let resign

 When it rains it pours,
and these tears won't close the door.
In a single moment,
a lifetime of poverty catches up
and seizes me.
strangles me.
beats me,
and flails me side to side.

I've been so patient,
abiding with grace,
small, silent, and steady gains,
but every time I try to make a move,
Life refuses to let me budge.
Reminds where I have come from,
reminds me I am of the mud.
It doesn't hold back from its malicious shoves.
And eventually, we all go back from whence we have come.

Sure, there's a lesson,
there's always a lesson,
but I'm tired of striving to be wise,
I'm tired of always having to be the point of balance,
to eat everyone's neuroticism,
and to respond with kindness,
with balance, with clarity.
no matter how much indigestion it causes,
no matter how much it burns,
there is no alternative.

Despite this exhaustion,
I have no other course,
for when I respond in kind,
rather than with kindness,
the flames just build,
and any hope for truth,
for clarity,
vaporizes in the release of utter irrationality.