You want to make something beautiful.
You try on your many hats-
Can you make art that stirs hearts to syncopated fluid intake?
Can you sing songs that lift the diaphragm?
Can you move in a dance that will bring your audience’s tear ducts to full production?
But you are not good at those things.
And you are not patient- here’s where it gets difficult.
You are not patient, so you move on.
You pull more hats from the closet.
You want to make something beautiful, so you save lives
In safety features for automated factories,
In the stitch of a needle through shredded flesh,
In the measure of a brace in a new office building
But you are too good at those things.
You want to feel like you’ve made something beautiful
Not just looking back, but as you make it
The stroke of a brush forming the curve of a lover’s cheek
The curl of the final bracket in a series of nested loops
The flex of your shoulderblades and press into the pillows
Everyone wants to make something beautiful,
In blood, in sweat, in paint
In lyric and code, in ink and tears
They want to have made something extraordinary by the time they die
So they can say they did, so it wasn’t a waste, so it just
So it was, and is, and could be forever.

I want to tell you about compassion,
But I don’t have any.
I hear it’s about selflessness and sacrifice,
About feeling bad
About suffering and relief,
About making yourself feel better
Through helping others.

I want to tell you about love,
But I don’t have any.
I thought I might have, once, but I scared it off
I thought it was about smiles, laughter and hope
But I hear it’s about ***
About skin and narrowed eyes
About making yourself feel better
Through touching others.

I want to tell you about pain,
But I don’t have any.
At least I don’t anymore
Because they’ve taken care of that.
I hear they’ve got a lot of stuff
I hear it’s about hormones and habits
About vitamins and sadness
About making yourself feel better
Through chemicals.

I want to tell you about me,
But I don’t have any.
I was something, and now I’m not,
And I haven’t decided what I’ll be next.
I hear it’s about dreams,
About ambition and drive,
About what I want to do and how,
About making yourself feel better
Through limiting regrets.

I want to tell you about life,
But I don’t have any of that, either.
I hear it’s about being good and making choices
And having preferences in the first place.
About growing up
And growing in
About making yourself feel better
Through acting.

You possess an abrasive restlessness
Sandpaper on silk, it strains.
Near delirious in your self-destruction,
You writhe, and twist, and scratch

Your heart skips beats,
Stutters and clenches for days
Arteries scuffle beneath your skin
Fingers tremble and then they curl

My dear, you are the sunrise in the west
The moonrise into the eclipse
You bare your teeth in a crown of light
And you threaten the dark