you didn't tell me
about off-color lights
or storm drains so deep
that echoes can't find me

you didn't tell me how the summer
is warm to touch
but would scald my feet one day

you didn't tell me how the ocean
would show me the curve of the earth
would show me the tides
but then sweep me away
when I'm not looking
and lose me to the undertow

you didn't tell me that this
is all I have
and all I can ever know
but it means nothing

you didn't tell me to cover my ears
if life got too loud

you didn't tell me how to land on my feet
or stand back up
or how not to fall

you didn't tell me I had to wait
for better things to come
or that they usually don't

you didn't tell me that something
that's one thing
could be another thing altogether

you didn't tell me that closing my eyes
won't make it stop
or go away

you didn't tell me that I won't ever have a voice
or that you never did

You, you only, exist.
We pass away, till at last,
our passing is so immense
that you arise: beautiful moment,
in all your suddenness,
arising in love, or enchanted
in the contraction of work.

To you I belong, however time may
wear me away. From you to you
I go commanded. In between
the garland is hanging in chance; but if you
take it up and up and up: look:
all becomes festival!
__

Translated by Stephen Mitchell

I have evolved

to survive in the blackest depths
where there is no light, no sound.
To survive at the tallest heights
where the air is too thin to breathe.
Yet, I am being crushed by the immense pressure
of the unexplored trenches of my mind.
I am being suffocated by the lack of oxygen
at the sickening peaks of my vacant euphoria.

I have evolved

not to thrive, not to live, but to survive, to exist.
I can't remember the last time I felt human
at the apex or the bottom of my trivial existence.
I don't believe that I ever was, because
humans have evolved to live
on stable grounds below the cliffs.
They have evolved to build the ships
that sail above me while I drift.

I have evolved






                                                   ­                                                     only to exist.

Darling, I hope I'm the cause of your
existential crisis,
opening your mind
in horrifying,
vulnerable
ways.

I hope I make you question
and I hope I make you learn.
Maybe I'll rewire your brain--
praise me
let me incarcerate my
writings in your
bones,
let my thoughts linger,
let the pads of my finger tips
dwell along
the contours of the railways
in your head,


let me in.