“You must earn the right
  to sing the blues

“No high school chorus,
  the hurt you choose”

To wrestle with your demons,
  no safety net in place

Often times it’s zero-sum,
  a blood trail left to trace

You hum those Irish ditties,
  or sing like Junior Wells

When you want those notes to fly,
  you usher them through hell

In the end it may not matter,
  the ending seldom does

What counts is how you stitch that wound
  —its scar now yours to love

(Villanova Pennsylvania: June, 2017)