you're my saving grace
when no one else listens
you allow me infinite pages
to pour out my insides
and you never even
speak a word
you're my best friend
when no one else gets it
you allow me to recover
from the mistakes I make
you touch so many people
in so many different ways
in song, in rhyme, in rhythm, in time
you cross generations and continents
you are diverse and honest
you are bad and great and here,
you're always here
and I love you for that
you're my life, in words,
Hello Poetry

My heart, it can't take much more
Knowing your secrets, your core
Does she touch you the way I do?
Does she love you like I want to?
Tell me, when you're awake at night
Shadowed by her hair and the moonlight
Do you think of me?
This is a game of run and chase
I'm the mouse, and she's the snake
I could prove myself to you but what good would it do
If you stay by her side until death turns you blue?
I see the way you fight and the fire in her eyes
She'd rather make you miserable than admit her lies
How can you stay?
I envision us woven together,
You and me bound by a tether
Discovering crevices and dips and grooves
The way your shoulders feel so smooth
My dreams are of you doing better, for you
My hope is that you will add me in, too
She'll call me a home wrecker, it may be fact
But don't let our chance slip through the cracks

is it alright if I link us all together? I need to lump us into a category entitled, "poets", so that I can discuss something with you all.
you see, I've read many a works with instructions on How Not to Fall in Love with an Artist. but there's a problem. we are poets, and we are artists, and the people who wrote me beautiful instructions know this as well.
but they forgot to teach me how to stop my heart from going there anyway.
it is a fact that us poets and artists and artist-poets see the world differently.
come on, tell me you walk down the street, see a kid dancing, and you don't want to run home and write about it.
I see poetry in everything I do.
every place I go, every voice I hear, every song I sing, I find a muse.
it's inevitable and lovely but it also makes living life with other people quite difficult.
when I was younger, my mom used to get so mad at me
because I'd sit in the car and question everything
I'd say
"why did we call a tree a tree? imagine if it were called 'blue'. we wouldn't say the sky was blue, because the sky isn't a tree. you see?"
and she'd say
"sweetie, I love ya, but you're going way too deep for me."
and I got so disappointed because to me, that was just the surface
I had an uncountable amount of questions and wonderings
with no one to discuss them with
so, yeah, I turned to the poet artists
I looked for love and all the hush hush and the yes
I sought out whisperers and thinkers and debaters
if they made me mad or confused me,
oh god,
it was love.
and yeah, so maybe none of those relationships stayed
maybe they were all way too broken and I couldn't fix them
they couldn't fix themselves
but I won't give up hope
I refuse to settle for the ones who are so numb to their own feelings that
they refuse to read a book
not because they're "boring" or "uninteresting" or "too hard",
but because books and words and poet artists transport us
directly to places we try to hide from.

my fellow poets understand and embrace this part of themselves
but "the ones" I am referring to, and you know who, because
you're imagining them right now...
they gotta think a little bit
they have to let me think with them
and if that results in misery and tragic writing
well, so be it

My soul literally pulsates
sideways out of my body
I watch it with heavy eyes, my head
on my pillow
I hear a motor revving down the street
And it grounds me
This stranger with a completely different life than mine is running a stable engine
And he has no idea that our disconnectedness
has connected me
He doesn't know that we never met and shall never part, for that reason
He doesn't know that he put my soul back in place
I listen to that motor humming and I inhale
Suddenly, it stops-

I have been horribly mistaken about loss and mortality
all this time I saw people grieving, but I was immune to it
I saw grief from a distance
and in my heart I thought that grief over death was weakness
because we all die
we are all going to die
so how can we stay so sad after it arrives?
but Jesus as my witness
I was wrong
I was so wrong
and I am so thankful that I discovered this truth when I did
because life is a beautiful thing and I don't mean our experiences
or the flowers and the ocean and the mountains and raindrops
I mean how we connect with people
nothing is comparable
do you hear me?
our unique invisible strings of being get woven together
and they get tangled and messy but oh
I'm in awe! the strings become intricate pieces of artwork
invaluable,
priceless,
WHOLLY intrinsic,
completely indescribable
and we wouldn't trade them for anything
and, God, when we grieve
we may be sad
but there is absolutely nothing
NOTHING
that is more precious and sacred
than the bonds left behind from those we love
we are forever tied together beyond the rules of time
and I now realize
that I would rather grieve a thousand times over
than to never know that type of love again
I'm so sorry

if air can be an electrical conductor,
just imagine what our mouths can create
a brief explosion of light and sound designing
a force field too strong to hold back
I am an electron; you are my ion
we emit energy so sizzling and sharp
that the hair stands up on the back of our necks
our tongues, like spark plugs
our bodies the batteries that never quite quit
alight in ashes, we are struck
together like stones and our
brightness breaks through
the haze of the dim world
we're igniting a riot
we are a spark
fuel our flame
blow us away into the atmosphere

the buzz is a violent truth serum
that enslaves you as its quilled pen

it requires certain demands of you  
things you cringe at upon waking

because suddenly

you've unraveled a beautiful scroll
and marked it with broken charcoal

and kissed it with a wine-stained mouth--
your stamp of drunken approval

to make sure that the one
who should never receive it

is exactly the one
who gets bit on the lips

by your alcoholic kiss
your inebriated, late night diss

her eyes told me everything she didn't want me to know.
like the first time I whispered, "I love you", I knew she loved me too.
because even though her mouth told me to hush and her fingers got tangled while unbuttoning my sweater,
her eyes burst with this firey, glossed hue and her skin grew flushed and soft and I knew right then that staring into her eyes was the sweetest gift she would ever be capable of giving me.

my favorite material
rich, luxurious, deep
cigars and a musky afterglow
your man's warmest sweater
he smells like the earth
he smells like lust
he smells like leather

my favorite material
*******, bedroom, broken
lay me in a vice grip and
force me to inhale
it smells like love
it smells like I'm centered
it smells like leather

Satire,
When used in a mature manner,
Is the most absolutely delicious
Most perfect form of a quiet rebellion
That of which my every day, regular peers
Can only hope to successfully publish.
It is not to be taken for granted,
It is instead meant to be heard and admired..
And possibly even feared
For my every day, regular peers
Are victoriously standing up
With the sharpest of political tongues
And the quickest, most enlightening wit.

the busiest sidewalks breed the deepest secrets
yet everyone pretends that they've forgotten how to speak
if we took a moment to watch how
the truth tumbles out from crumpled coffee cups and crinkled napkins
we may learn a thing or two
about our hollow brethren

Your chest is made up of solid marble.

I am spent,
Five years I've chipped away, slinging picks and sawing dust off of your breastplate
I hear wings flapping against your ribs but I cannot free your bird's heart
It is too small and it is growing weaker
I took your temperature with my palms and nicknamed you Arctic
You were my Alaska and I made thawing you my meaning
Five years I've wondered why we work so hard at what we can't have
You're cold as stone and I'm losing my patience
So I set aflame your collarbone and poured gasoline over your sternum
Sat back and watched the fireworks pinging off of your chest hairs
They glow blue in the evening
You're blue and I'm freezing
I'm moving on

Upon waking
I hacked impurities from my rusty lungs
And you traveled out of my esophagus
Down into the fluffy folds of no return
A thing to be wasted, to be thrown out
And even though the label warned me
That side effects may happen
I was crossing my bony fingers
In the hopes that I would sleep forever
But it looks like this medication
Is powerful in all the wrong ways

when I was in the fifth grade
we were told to put our names on notecards
and to pass them around the class
so that each student could write
one nice word
about each of us in turn
and I had a crush on a boy
and I wrote "nice" on his notecard
and he wrote on my notecard
"mediocre"
and to this day my heart doesn't know
if it is more in awe that he knew such a word
or if it is offended and crushed
and five kinds of hurt
and boys are dumb anyway
and I constantly wonder
how mediocre I am

I study her withering hands every time I'm around her
they are becoming so thin... all her veins stick out like snakes
her fingers are all crooked--
broken tree branches fighting against the wind
eighty years of working her flower beds and scrubbing floors and
baking the best meals and desserts that only a grandmother can prepare
and my grandpa, I have never loved a person as deep and as securely as I love him  
saying you have a hero borders on icon-worshipping but in this case he's solid
he is the absolute best and absolute most loyal man I have ever had the pleasure
of knowing
he married my grandma at eighteen, and
eighty eight years of wars and he never took one sick day off of work
he sleds down his long, winding driveway to pick up his mail in the snow
he used to pour water in my hands and tell me that if I could catch it,
I could catch the entire universe right there in my palms
I tried for years

I study their hands because I want to remember their greatest parts
arguably, that could be every inch, but their hands have shown
such strength, boldness, fight, hard work, dedication, love, and tenderness
maybe this is wrong but every day I practice saying goodbye in my mind
so that when they pass, I am not so crushed that I cannot move on
they have been my saving grace too many times for me to thank them for
so I just say I love you, you're my reason for existing, and then I
carefully etch their hands in my mind so that never for a second
will I forget the great work they have done here

scribble my years on a square of parchment,

wrap me up tight and secure me with a bow

place me in grandfather's glass bottle,  

then send me down the river row by row

My cloudy eyes crinkle as I gaze out at the powdery,
newly fallen snow
My thin hands, ever-trembling, delicately weave
designs in the frost on the glass
I absent-mindedly let my thoughts turn
to the kids and their children
A soft smile warms my skin and I slip
into happy memories of days far in the past.

My vanity is cluttered with images of my late husband
Laughing with his friends after a fishing trip,
Proudly holding up the night’s meal.
Here, see us dancing alone to the lullaby of the fireflies
I remember this moment; swaying under the stars
in the coolest breeze of spring
I silently reach out to touch the man I held so dear,
desperate to feel his warmth again
And, clasping the picture frame, I step over to my bedside
Turn down the light and lift my weary body on to the pillows
I start to drift off, my fingers trailing along
the wooden base of our memories
The love and dedication etched into the detailing
by his strong, rough hands,
The hands that held me up until their brittle bones turned to ash.
I pull the picture frame up to my chest,
Then smile in my sleep, heart contented with his face so close to mine.
Believing we are floating away together, one last breath
of a blissful life is taken--
I'm coming home to you.

maybe the universe wouldn't mind explaining to me
why we romanticize how we'd react in tragedies
I mean, we watch the news until our eyes glaze over
another school shooting, dozens more killed here, there
and we have the guts to say
"I would have done this differently"
no
I dare you to stare down controversy
chances are
your name and mine would also end up on an
R.I.P scroll at the bottom of the CNN media

you bloodied me with your lack of concern

you pushed me with your false realities

you wounded me with your cynicism and judgment

you destroyed me with your selfishness

you embarrassed me with your entitlement

you offended me with your blatant lies

you chained me by making me your slave

you chased me when I finally tried to leave

you terrified me when I thought I was being followed

you cut me when you dismissed my hurt

you assaulted me with anger and violence

you weeped at me to come home

you obliterated me with your being

you slaughtered me because I still love you

you were supposed to be my mother

I drove your mind into a river
Parked your dreams on the sand
You clutched at my body but I threw you out of gear
Rolled down your eyelids and your heart played static
Over the line I heard the radio chatter
"He's gone," they voiced
Exhaust fumes suffocated your family
As they choked out their goodbyes
Your console had filled with water
Muffled your drowning cries
And in those last moments your clock said
6:43
Funny, it almost looks like
B, Y E

old friend, what a surprise
past the devil's hour with open eyes
now my mind is surging with all the
thoughts and self I blocked out after sunrise

hello, I am busy
looking for the cracks in your porcelain halo
to be happy is to be in the practice of
letting your sorrows unfold into the atmosphere
they are still there; they swirl and drift lazily into bird wings and against the sides of tall mountains
but to breathe and let them be is to be happy
lately I have sat still thinking of my pulse
of our pulses when we connect our wrists together to feel that extra oomph
and I have deduced that I cannot breathe as easily as it was to recognize happiness
not yet
we are cracked porcelain

what would life hold for me if I were the Sea?
liquid oxygen, so vast; lighthouses blinding me
at dusk the shipyards' ghosts come alive-- they break free
from the fog and silhouettes and all the weathered oak trees

the storms have arrived! you've met Katrina and Ike, I see
planning destruction and chaos and broken unity
throwing whiplashing waves and ***** seaweed,
splashing homes on my shores and debris at your feet

below my rippling surface: a myriad of pure glee
schools of rainbow fish, all swimming in threes
never travel too low-- to a certain degree
you'll be 1,000 leagues under the sea

signs of icebergs and whales, o', "beware of the beast"
stung on the tips of your fingers by my vicious coral reef
mermaids and their fathers' tridents, if you believe
plankton floating away with his secret recipe

guardians of the waters- my coast guards- the naval police
swimmers and divers who devour shrimp over beef
please hop in your dinghy and come visit me
I'm beautiful and deadly, my name is the Sea

patterns reflect patterns reflect history repeating itself
I see problems in humanity because humanity corrupts
seriously, we can't have a movement for "better" without making it worse
listen, slavery, right?
whites hated blacks
deemed them lesser
deemed them nobodies, nonexistent
that's putting it generic
so what do we have now?
an era of white-haters!
so many "minorities" standing up and saying
"I hate the whites"
we have done a 360 and it kills me
it was supposed to be about blacks being seen as equals
being seen as people instead of blacks
and now, yeah, I'm going there
gays
I love gays, man
but y'all are killing me too
this is what I see
gays oppressed, dismissed, told they're sinners
unholy, bad, gross, wrong, backwards, ugh
they were beaten, bloodied, bruised, murdered, silenced
so the gays stand up
what do I hear?
"I hate Christians"
"I hate straights"
"I hate everyone who is not gay"
people hating on macklemore because
he tried to stand up
for THE PEOPLE!
they say
"a straight white man cannot represent the gay community"
I'm sorry

WHAT????

we act like no one has gone through HARDSHIP
we act like if you're white, straight, and a male, you're golden
free
happy
perfect
wake up.
what no  one discusses
is that the issue is right vs wrong
right vs wrong
right vs wrong
I'm not a straight white male but I know right vs wrong
I'm not an Irish Jew but I know right vs wrong
I'm not a Haitian Creole Indian goddess but I know right vs wrong
you don't have to BE the oppression to SPEAK on the oppression
you have to know right vs wrong
I say macklemore knows
I know
you know
let's speak up
what is wrong is discrimination
what is right is taking a stand to end it
so please
blacks,
gays,
minorities,
whites,
humans,
majorities,
stop obliterating good
or else you'll be confined to the chains of oppression and silence until the day you die and so on amen

I'm a human being
tell me what I cannot speak on

my throat is being crushed*
I subconsciously know this is a dream
but I cannot shake myself loose
funny how we are supposed to be
in control of our destinies
while we are sleeping
I am my own hero
when my mind is elevated out of my
shell-shocked body
I am choking and heaving but
nothing enters my lungs
I am soon going to quit feeling
it is a weird darkness
that I have been entombed in
no strangers or murderers or
demonic beings are trying to
steal my breath from my ribcage
it is just me
I   just   need   to   tell    myself
      to                     inhale  




...

..

.


I am awake
I **** air through my teeth--

when you speak out of turn, the ground shakes
I sealed your lips with dried blood but you were always one to fight through the pain
holding your red face between my cracked palms, I glimpse confinement
a place I have been to... a hell I will not lock myself in again
yet the humanity in your eyes braces itself against your chest and you push and you push until I split in two
half of me igniting with a desire to save you and the other desperately begging me to save myself
I am standing on solid air and I am falling upward
defined and confined
trapped in a box of infinity
with no one to turn to but the reflection of me:
you

apologies are nothing
but lifeless letters until you breathe meaning
into the spaces between each and every word

oh, the things you hear at the doctors'
the elderly man with melanoma on his face
trudging out behind his wife
mumbling "****" under his breath
the sweet weathered receptionist
says "nice to see you again!"
to her seventieth geriatric patient
there comes a day
when her patients quit calling
quit showing up
and she has fewer and fewer people
to recognize
ugh

Do you want to know why I stayed?
I threatened so many times to disappear before you glimpsed
the worst parts of me, through whispers and fists and biting
my lips to stop the eruptions of volatile girl from stabbing
you with my skeletons.
In the misty, early hours when neither of us were sleeping
because you were scared I'd go and I was scared I wouldn't,
I showed you the nooks and crannies of my character, the
crevices and caverns of my interchanging moods.
I did my very best to upset and cause unrest and I flung
every miserable curse in the direction I thought you'd be going.
I screamed my violence and mistakes against the front door
and told you I had proven you right.
I was unlovable.
I was a dysfunctional bundle of bones and you were
better off without me.
And I turned over to sob myself to sleep and considered
how I would also be better off without myself and as I
went to hit my pillows-
As I heaved in a shuddering breath of regret and guilt
and my lungs expanded to places I had never felt before,
You reached out and caught me and inserted yourself as
a root in my flailing, upended life.
You stroked my hair and cradled my shivering body and
quieted my sobs and told me there was no way in hell
that you'd leave this beautiful mess.
You said that I punish myself for being anything other than
what I think I should be. You said that I wreck the things
I love the most so that they won't one day see me as
a monster, and you're right. I prove how horrible I am
before you can. I sabotage so that I can say
I know. I'll let you go.
But you absolutely refuse to go,
So here I stay.

The cold is nipping at my heels again
For two days I have been deluded into
Thinking that Autumn
May actually feel like Autumn

Rows of the skeletons I have shut up in my
Cabinets are now standing bare and silent
Along the horizon; they taunt, they mock
The few leaves they have managed to
Hold on to sway in the chill and
Shudder when I walk past

Three deer creep up to the patio
I watch them behind my safe place
My window is my protective cover
From all that is outside and out of my
Control
Frost sneaks up the wood paneling and
The faint laughter from the school children
Fades into a maniacal howl

Soon the snow will cover the tracks of
The poltergeists who visit me at night
In white robes blanketing their voices,
They surround me and pierce my dreams
Visions of violent assault and grief and
Helplessness
of Seasonal Affective Disorder

Winter steals my Indian summers and
Whips me with brutal cold and sleet
Warm afternoons turn into car accidents
And black ice and broken people
Soon the snow will present itself  
And the sunlight will fade from my eyes
So let me sleep until spring.

a    p o e m    a    d a y     k e e p s    t h e    d e m o n s    a t    b a y

Black coffee to ring in Monday morning
Fingertips leaving his imprint on my collarbone
Steam to erase the last traces of my guilty pleasures
Ashes on my skin from her cigarettes
Words left by their sword-like tongues
Sunrises searing holes in my retinas
Tar below our bare feet
Memories branded in my thoughts
Scalding memories, scalding memories

This takes place on a rooftop above the city
Almost twangy, almost

Stars are out, and boy, are they ever strong
The sweetest lullaby of a love song
Sung to me from your fingertips
Patetico

Strumming the notes as you would a lover
Best friends turned to endless memories
Perfect, soft whispers
Harmonies that make me listen so close
I don't want to miss a thing

Breathing in the calmest wind-- your air
Sospirando
Coming together with a melody that grows
Two bodies unified as one loud symbol--
Crescendo, dolcissimo, fortepiano, melting gelato  

Rosy reds and the palest clouds
Awakening both hearts, not a dream
You tighten your grip and beg me not to go
Ostinato

As long as you keep singing from your fingertips
Appassionato
And if those hands are your outlets
Bravura
I’ll stay here
Al fine

Kiss me:
Once to unearth your secret crush
Twice when it's early and you don't want to leave
Three times to whisper you love me
Four times to send your apologies
Five times before breaking my heart  
And six before I take you back again
One hundred to show how much I mean to you
One hundred and one for that "other" girl
102 before I realize just how much time
I wasted being with you

she's like a ticking time bomb itching to detonate
cut the wrong wire and you're toast
handle her with care and slow her heart rate
or she'll scatter your pieces across the coast

he's like a wilted willow tree trying to stand tall
pull on his limbs and he'll come undone
watch his sad leaves detach and fall
abuse him until he is none

Let's weave our lips shut with weeds and explore the hushed secrets of the world with nothing but cold fingertips.

shivering in the snow
brittle, glittering diamonds
both so fragile and perfect..
both so deadly.
wearing each to sleep
a blanket of clear, white slumber
hushing the sounds from above,
resting in peace.

he was thin and white
a habit I couldn't break
leaning against the crumbling walls
mind adrift and shoes making
light scuff marks against the cracked tar
he wore a jean jacket every day and at first
I likened him to a *** but once you
see a person so many times
what they wear becomes who they are
and who they are is what you love
I loved the way he shoved his sleeves
up to his elbows and then he'd
push his messy hair out of his face
with these battered hands that were
subtly caked with paint
sometimes you sense a story about the person
and I wondered for a while if
it would be appropriate for me
to insert myself in his chapters
but you know love
and you know interest
and you know you can't help it
so I broke the barrier and shuffled up beside him
he didn't look at me
just stuck his thumb in his pocket and
rested his right shoe back against the wall
he wouldn't speak so I took his photo
stood directly in front of him and
snapped what would go on to be
the first and last time I saw this drifter
he melted away into the mortar
he curled into the sun
my photo held his existence steady and still
until that evening; I lit it ablaze
you may ask why I didn't catch his name
but it is a known fact that smoke can never
and will never
be one to be captured

I sat alone in front of a crumbling grey building until its debris whispered the okay for me to go home

when you jog under street lamps and your breath is white and misty from the chill, you realize just how many footsteps have fallen before you and you wonder just how much of this same air was here last year


how can I ever live on my own when I am so afraid of the dark?


if I had a penny for every vivacious hot dog stand I came across......... I'd have enough to buy a few hot dogs.

the air doesn't smell *****. the ground doesn't look littered and ashen. this place is alive. the streets are filled with the souls of the people. they just take the shape of battered shopping carts and greasy cardboard boxes and taxi smoke when you're not looking hard enough. they're exceptional at disguise.

I see a lot of churches but I only see sin happening at the altar.  

you cannot think for yourself when the roar of the city is your cerebral cortex

in all my musing I dreamt of cobblestones and patisseries. I thought the history was in the legend-- in the campfire stories and the romance novels. but it isn't. it's here. it's New York.

children are different here. self awareness ranks high when the thieves hide in plain sight.

cracks in the pavement make me wonder what mysteries lay in the tunnels that no one speaks about

spoke to approximately 30 koreans in china town about the price of tea in america

haute couture is for sure never going to be folklore

I felt inferior walking down fifth ave so I bought a pair of knock-off sunglasses and painted musicals with my feet while eating candied insects with strangers

undiscovered broke talent meets every corner in every city

pick a card
any card
except that one
he knew I knew he'd get my $20
I let him have it
it was counterfeit

brooklyn is a two-faced liar and I'm jim carrey with a b-bl-b-blllll-bllluuured pen,
carving my insides into the trees so the little girls remember their manners when they're older

new york is forever awake and I am eternally ready to go to sleep  

taxi drivers are succubi

We sang goodbye to the Sun in unison,
never worrying, never fading;
welcomed the Moon and her power and secrets and mystery.
Knowing Mother Sun would appear again soon,
shining with her warmth and energy and Love.

Hey, kid
Your eyes hold things only grown men should see
Don't worry, little one, the sting of mortality only lasts for forever
Hey, kid
The way you lug your weary body around haunts my sleep
Don't worry, little one, the bad certainly cannot last for eternity
Hey, kid
Is that a knife in your hand?
Come on, little one, think things through
Life won't always be unfair to you  
Hey, kid
Why'd you **** her?
That orphanage could have been your saving grace
Now you're indefinitely
A ward of the state
Hey, kid
I found your brothers and sisters
Their gravestones side by side
How lovely they look, adorned with dead flowers
Kid, where's your ma?
Hey, you can't go in there
Come on, buddy, the cops'll find ya
Let's go home
Hey......
Arson won't solve your problems, kid
I'm losing hope
In your lost world
I tried to help ya, kid
But you have to want
To be savable
Hey........
I just got the call
What a shame, what a waste
I'll miss you, kid.

let's you and I mingle with the tantalizing Sirens

their Song, so seductive, will distract you while I

lead Odysseus to our spacious secret cave  

which-- I have newly prepared with Calypso's blessing

[I dare say she seems to have a crush on my Odysseus!]

enraptured was he,
enamored and taken aback,
eyes glossing and fingers trembling,
effortlessly pouring his soul to top her glass.
she was wild and equally fragile,
strong in her vivacious convictions-
stubborn and quiet and barely content,
sharing a love of fiction and faith and fire.
they danced and watched the skies,
tangled together in hopes and dreams,
tossed to the world by the winds of their cities,
trying desperately to get a grasp on growing up and getting out.
her favorite memory of him:
he had headed into the fields to gaze into space
half shivering, half dead,
holding out a rose to her-- his favorite scent.
night fell and so did they,
nodding off with heads in the weeds,
nurturing each others' wounds and bruises,
nearing dusk with new determination and confidence.

Too many of us sling tasks over our shoulders that are better left to those who request they be completed

Days turn into weeks of selfless help and pretty soon we stop doing for us-- instead doing for everyone else

Then eventually we shake our hollow frames and the dust flies off and settles and we take a good long look in the mirror and say it's our turn

There is something to be said about helping one another but there is a quiet strength in admitting that we need help, too.