How I feel

Failure is a dirty word
Because if it is ever true
Then life is over, isn't it?
For if life isn't over, then
It isn't really failure
It's the merest setback on the path
And like all setbacks overcome
And like all setbacks learned from

I have a problem, one that everybody
Says is not my fault, nor could be
Genetics is the name of things
My grandfather's legacy to me
I wish I could believe that DNA
Was playing one of its worst tricks
But now I look at chemicals
To fix the things I swore I'd fix
Alone

A boy walks out of his mother's home
And says, 'Is this a failure?  Is it over?'
And tells himself 'No, you are strong
And will be strong to the end of time'
He builds his life around that strength
Not arrogant or foolish, no
But with the surest knowledge that
If all else fails, if all desert him
Even if the world's against him
He is strong enough to live alone

And now I turn to medication
Because, they say, this problem's bigger
Than anything I could fix alone
And all I can think of is - is it really?
I am not the most productive
I could be far more diligent
I could have trained and disciplined
My artist's mind to great precision
Is it that lack of precision now
That causes me to freeze and quake
To sit alone, dressed but not gone
Trembling as I divert my mind from anything
Anything but my tasks
And think, 'I'd kill myself if not for fear of pain'

And this problem, one that everybody
Says is not my fault, nor could be
I struggled with for many years
I swore that I would overcome, for
What use is it to me
Of witch-doctors and psychiatry?
What need have I for chemicals
When I have strength and force of will?

But I am weaker than I thought
And I cannot pretend again
But still my mind is haunted by
That dreadful possibility:
Am I really helpless before
A cruel problem larger than me?
Or am I simply blaming my own weakness
On a genetic anomaly?