If you want to hear the real truth, then:
Truth is I’ve felt like an actor in this rebirth,
a kidnapped hitchhiker of this change.

Is this even possible, I’ve wondered aloud:
Is this just another mask?
Am I just rehearsing some lines?

I've tried to write a new chapter but
my pen cuts the paper ‘cause
I’m trying so hard.

Truth is I wasn’t sure I’d changed but then,
today I cut a lemon with more joy
than I think I’ve had in my whole life.

That I'd picked out my grave plot but now:
I'm thinking raised beds and tomatoes
so I can make spaghetti for some new love.

Blank—
That’s my mind when they talk and laugh,
sharing stories of shallow privilege.
What should I say:
That I don’t feel like a person,
That I don’t know how to brush my teeth and be okay.
They got tattoos of dolphins, with friends over spring break, on their wrists;
I got the words second chance, by myself in a ***** strip mall, over my heart.

I wish this were the kind of sad that cries,
that falls down on the concrete, and wails.
I’d take bloodied knees to see color again.
But this—this sad drips from the faucet,
it yellows the walls.
I wish this were a truth that I could accept:
No matter how much you pour
into a cup with no bottom,
it won’t fill.

Relationships so different
all have a commonality now:
There's nothing left to say
in every conversation.

It's just you and the shame.
Wrongdoings of the past
***** this lonely tower
where you crouch.

Too tired to cry,
too nothing to act.
Too ashamed to look up
at the grocery checkout girl.

So just stop eating.
Bar up your windows and doors.
Cancel the mail.
Phone rings:

You use your last hope
to unlock the screen.
It's an 800 number
but you answer anyway.

Walgreens' automated message
is a feminine voice:
Get your flu shot today
to protect friends and family.

You listen to the three-minute message,
four times.
It's nice not to hear the refrigerator hum,
for a little while.

The voice sounds nice
but you know how that'd end.
You'd be on the no-call list if they knew.
So you go on un-immunized.

Belly-up to the world,
sick at every exposure,
this shame whittles you down to bones:
Bones on the other end of the line.

Cold, skinned fingertips
cant slide green to answer.
800 numbers go to a voicemail
that will never be checked.

So long I’ve spent on the question: me,
too little on the answer: we.

We get up in our heads
'bout how our stories will be read.

But I found a kitten who was a stray.
Without thinking, he knows to play.

It begs the question, what would we do?
If we turned off our minds and had a moment or two.

To express our true nature without right and wrong:
I tilted my head back and bellowed a song.

Without judgment, leaves know to fall;
bread knows to rise, and we know love's all.

Minds say that’s wrong, and you can’t forgive,
but silence begs daisies in the concrete to live.

Unmoved by your arrival from the west coast,
ten thousand little things are different.

It’s October and the trees are on fire:
a forge that you won't notice, 'til you're gold.

Your Kicks don’t leave footprints on these cobbled streets;
even the children have old, leathery hands.

Try to paddle-board the Eno and the bass go belly-up:
that river’s for scattering ashes and making moonshine.

All they sell at Aldi is ethnic shampoo,
so now your hair twists like the roots you’ve lacked

'til now, because all you’ll ever need is two hands:
for prayer, and work.

Life moves on like a cigarette’s drag,
while somewhere Hope’s fiddle strums;

Take off your headphones and
go put your ear to an oak.