The dot by your name,
The yellow lighting bolt
High tide warning
You have sent me a message private.

A tap, a flick,
We are communicating,
Comparative woes and lives
That could not be more different.

There but for history's twists,
We would share the same country.

But here comes the confess.
I do not rush to read them,
A savory, a wine that must decant,
Just knowing that you care
Put me in your prayers
Is nothing short of insanity.

Who puts me in their prayers?
Who confesses to saying prayers, anyway?

The pleasure of knowing that a you-message awaits,
Eye candy for the my mind,
But more real more truthful is
I am afraid for myself.

Distance real and virtual cannot be overcome,
Your troubles, a surrounding circle.
No angle, no escape, and I am there,
Next to you, as close as I want to be,
I, cannot be close enough.

Do you notice that I write these days
Tween midnight and six,
When the painkillers wear off?

You gift me 97 pages of reveal,
After page 2, you make me squeal.
Wordy tears are unveiled at 100am,
Force myself to open, to it, deal.

Three times a day, with food. Pain killers.
So from now on,
I will eat at midnight, take that pill,
And maybe sleep.

But for now, but for you,
There is no pill that drives away the pain
That is ten years old and still haunts.
Different pains, different pills.

But what I can do,
Is put you in something
With which, I am way out of practice,
Knee'd, put you in my prayers,
Which always get answered, tho
Ain't necessarily positive.

This pain has me hobbled.
Besides, when in the past,
Knee'd, always made Him uncomfortable, so,
I write vertical, standing up,
Overlooking the East River
And you reject my your-composure admiration,

Ok.

Here is a funny word that captures you,
And me ironically, the now stand-up poet.

aplomb
— noun

imperturbable self-possession, poise, or assurance.
the perpendicular, or vertical, position.

You possess it by the kilo.

If you say it out loud,
One of us will laugh,
And one of us still be weeping.

100am and the prayer thing comes back to me,
Way too easy.

But reciprocity of kind
All I ask for.

I know the creator is up, listening.
Cause we talk, as you know.
None will be more surprised than
He,
To see a black dotted, yellow lighting message
From his earthbound buddy.

Will it be opened,
Or like me,
Left unread, for the savory pleasure
Of knowing he has me vertical too,
Asking for his intercedence?

I don't know.
So while we wait, I give you this poem
Free and clear.  You own it.
This lighting poem,
This prayer.