I was never good at avoiding pain
It is what comes from placing faith
And why I do something so vain
When I can't know that there is ground beneath
I can't tell you, but I can recount
How my days are nothing until
I hear from you, and then I count
Another age until you will
Show me something I think is love.
I don't know what makes me depend
On knowing this; perhaps I could dream of
Stopping and do it, too, but rend
My heart in three rather than that I
Should let your claim upon me die.

Here I am
Standing on the edge
This thought
Binds my feet to the ledge

If I jump
The pain won’t fall with me
And, somehow the heaviest
Weight on my shoulders
Is weightless

I know
If I took that step
It’s not right
To leave you what’s left

I can’t burden you with it
There’s no where
In your soft body
To hold my hurt
I can’t burden you with it
There’s no where
In your soft body
To hold my hurt

The space you made to love me
I could never let my pain
Take its place
So when I think of fast falling
When the edge is calling
I see your face

I know you’d go with me
On the way down, down
Told me once
I’d never feel alone, alone
But, I know at the bottom
We’d go our separate ways, way
Because heaven is for angels
And those who know how to pray, pray

I stop to think
Sway a little in the wind
Kick some gravel from the edge
My ancestors are dust
My hopes are ashes
I think of you
Of the flowers we picked
In the summer fields
Every memory of you
Fills the honeycombs of my mind
With sweet, sweet syrup

I can’t burden you with it
There’s no where
In your soft body
To hold my hurt
I can’t burden you with it
There’s no where
In your soft body
To hold my hurt

And I turn away from the edge
Light as pollen in the wind
Weightless
Weightless

at any stage —
a rose strikes beauty

I envy the sun —
for it always rises

a quivering combust
from this disgrace:
in fuss speak low run fast
recover all you must
a key is now misplaced
them us them us
retaliate but never trust
the more you hate
the more to ask for
help
the more the less
alas

In my youth I have followed
A heart of darkness
Over the edge
And into the water

In my youth I have rebelled
And followed my instinct
Into a grave
Of my own doing

Let me forget my youth
And feel something new
Don't want to relive again
A past full of pain

Even now I have no future
Can't make plans
Can't do anything alone
For I was brought up a slave

There's no use in remembering
If I went back
I could change nothing
Wish I could forgive

Yet even the darkest cloud
Can end with the rainbow
I'm hoping for something good
To come my way

the sea
the bay
now thickened with gray
from the death of the northern wind
  reveals his soul
  with heartless roll
         and the foam
                    on his grizzled chin