With a thought I can destroy the world
Just a word, really

It hurts me that it's hard
To make it another day and still remember to breathe, but

I still have to fall in love
So I can't let myself leave

All it takes is a thought, a word really
Why?
And I am falling from this world

So I promise myself not to think so much
I'll dance instead
You'll find me running barefoot across the world
My hair wild behind me
I will leap over "why" and shake hands with "what"
Maybe then it won't seem so hard to breathe
And I will rejoice that, in the cage of my youth, I did not, once and for all, destroy reality

One day, I will fall in love

Instead, I will set the world free

not only for Christians
ideas of coming back to life

    like older myths
    of fertility and rebirth

are infinitely attractive

over the years
life leaves its traces
on our bodies, our souls,
in our memories

    the moment when a broken twig
    just barely missed the eye
    of a cavorting child

the first time promises
turned into cheats, betrayal, strife
adding injustice to the loss of trust

    the day when suddenly
    you could not read
    the writing on the blackboard any more
    and needed glasses

the time when playing the piano
got so painful that you had to stop dreaming of a pianist’s career

    love’s first elations
    followed by despair and disappointment

some lucky instances as well
have kept you kicking & alive until this day

    crashing through the old glass door
    mostly unharmed
    with your first scooter

during a summer job at the steel mill
seeing just your leather working glove
    and not your hand
disappear into the hydraulic power press

   getting away with just a crick in your neck
   when your idiot friend caused a car crash
   that left only small pieces of your glasses
   in the wreck

out of them all
the scars of loss
    or threat of loss
are such that never die

    your little son saved
    by last-minute surgery

sitting at your daughter’s bed
for several days
until high fever finally abated

   your mother’s unexpected death
   on the first day of spring

the slow and dreary suffering
your father bore with desperate pride
a few more years

all these engravings
   and many more
written by the flow of time and space
are waiting just around the corner
    from your daily living room
mixed in with fonder memories
of joyous time and wonderful events

together they have shaped
the person that you are
your life, your world

which you still try
to understand