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Johnna Marcus is a Clinical Social Worker in Boston, MA and resident of Somerville, MA. Her professional interest areas include substance use disorders, chronic pain and adult mental health. Her hobbies include running, weightlifting and writing articles about Social Work and addictions. She is fairly new to the art of poetry but has felt it helps her express herself in new and fulfilling ways.

Wearing your wounds like a crown

Like a song lyric recited over and over, there is comfort in the sadness
A new desperation within you
An idea that says, “you cannot slow down, or you might stop”
Like a marathon of sorts?
Your heart pumping, blood flowing like electric currents
You can hardly remember what stillness feels like
Walking around the city aimlessly
You have no direction, certain things catch your eye
A storefront, people who seem interesting, a park bench to sit on
You embrace being lost, but you never get anywhere and
It leaves you unsatisfied
You have tried to find peace, but it feels like complacency
A pill there, a drink here
And where does it all go in the end?
There is supposed to be meaning, leading you to finality- the truth of sorts
It brings you in with obsessional gravity
There is nothing to distract you from your focus now
You are missing things, but they are not important to you- someone’s laughter, their outreach of friendship, plans being made through text messages
It means nothing if it doesn’t move you toward what you are destined to do
Clenched fists and an upset stomach, you run forward
You are hungry, tired and hot but that doesn’t matter now
You are too far in to stop
You look around for the signs but there is nothing
Staring at white walls
“Just keep going” it tells you
There has to be an end somewhere
So you go, step by step until the balls of your feet cannot bear the weight

Better to die searching then be killed in surrender

— Johnna Marcus