PLAY FOOTBALL ON FRIDAY THROUGH MUD AND THROUGH SOOT, wake up the next morning you're missing a foot. Hop yourself through a hoop game, your Saturday's grand, wake up Sunday morning with only one hand. On Sunday you're crying, these thoughts you despise. Monday rolls around, you've lost one of your eyes. On Monday you eat comfort food for relief. Go to brush Tuesday morning―bare gums with no teeth.

What's happening here? Oh what sorcerer's curse? One foot and one hand you could handle at first. You dare not speak words lest your mandible burst. And you mustn't have ***. (Losing THAT'd be the worst!)

So you lock down all actions, your life paralyzed, but there go your earlobes, biceps, hair, and thighs. By evening on Thursday you fear you'll be dead. One week to the day you wake only a head.

So you roll down the stairwell and "head" for the doctor. When you pass by the park children use you for soccer. Deflated and bruised, when you roll by the courts, the basketball kids rub your face on their shorts.

At last the Doc's office! You wish you had cancer! At least in that case there'd be some easy answer. Doc looks at you sideways. He's smug and quite snotty. "Just what would you like sir, a prosthetic body?" He writes a prescription for pain medication―shoves the script in your mouth as he calls his next patient.

You roll down the boulevard, scalp over chin, back to your apartment to let death set in.

Arriving at home with the pills in your mouth, you find you're not alone, someone's there on your couch.

Your Father! Your Father!

He says Hello, Head.

But this can't be your Father 'cause your Father's dead! This can't be your Dad. Look his eyes are aflame! And he just called you "Head." Your real Dad knows your name.

He sees you're no dullard (though battered and weak). His skin changes color as he starts to speak:

I'm the first fallen angel. I equate with upheaval. You know me as Lucifer: Master of Evil. It is I who enacted this tragic infection. See one week ago Jesus pulled his protection. All evidence says that the Lord thinks you've sinned. I know not your transgression―that's between you and Him. But for some unknown reason He's left you exposed, and to exploit this new opening I am predisposed.

So let's make a deal! Acceptance makes you whole! The price is quite nominal, (you guessed it) your soul! I'll restore your body. You'll forever be proud! You'll be richer, more handsome, and better endowed! You'll have women, a mansion, the respect of your peers, remain youthful forever, wisdom beyond your years. And if you decline, well,  for you, that's a loss: to be the main ingredient in my 'Special Eternal One-Eyed Head Soup with Maggot Sauce.'

So what do you say? The decision is yours. A millionaire's life or worms eating your pores?

You think of your Father. How he raised you in church. The love of your Mother. How she valued good works.

Then you think of your body. You were an athlete, a dancer.

So you open your mouth and give Satan his answer.

Where everyone
is damaged goods,
there are
no damaged goods.

  ~mce

Sorrow like a ceaseless rain
  Beats upon my heart.
People twist and scream in pain,—
Dawn will find them still again;
This has neither wax nor wane,
  Neither stop nor start.

People dress and go to town;
  I sit in my chair.
All my thoughts are slow and brown:
Standing up or sitting down
Little matters, or what gown
  Or what shoes I wear.

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may **** me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

A free bird leaps on the back
Of the wind and floats downstream
Till the current ends and dips his wing
In the orange suns rays
And dares to claim the sky.

But a BIRD that stalks down his narrow cage
Can seldom see through his bars of rage
His wings are clipped and his feet are tied
So he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings with a fearful trill
Of things unknown but longed for still
And his tune is heard on the distant hill for
The caged bird sings of freedom.

The free bird thinks of another breeze
And the trade winds soft through
The sighing trees
And the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright
Lawn and he names the sky his own.

But a caged BIRD stands on the grave of dreams
His shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
His wings are clipped and his feet are tied
So he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings with
A fearful trill of things unknown
But longed for still and his
Tune is heard on the distant hill
For the caged bird sings of freedom.