Phantom Fierce Pierce

For Sally

Do have the courage of fear?
What!
You heard me.
Admit that we are all inhabited,
Admit that we are all inhibited.

Fear, the eleventh plague visited upon the Egyptians,
Nothing more paralyzingly complete.
Walking down an average day, an average street,
A median day, a medium day that a
Black disease from whence unknown,
And you are a froze shadowed chalk figure
Drawn upon the concrete, unable to move.

What would you pay, anything,
What would you give, everything,
Cleanse it all
Cut out the incisions
That with precision
Haunt your every
Waking and sleeping moment.
The deeds that did not get done,
The deeds that cannot get undone,
Both your undoing.

A plague on both, a plague on me,
My plague, unique to me,
Free me from this whatever the cost.

But it can't be arranged.
No devil to sell back the things
Of which you are ashamed,
No stain stick extant to guarantee success.

When the hollow is so great
You feel non-existent.

But you do not see what I see...
Courage, raw and plain, admits
These phantoms are not phantoms at all.

Those figures try to break you.
There is a beach, a path, where you know,
Safety.

Not easy to get there. The bus schedule unpublished.
But the bus line exists.
And you have the courage to wait, patiently
Until it arrives.

There is value here, if you read between the dashes
And the dots.

I see you for who you are.
You are the phantom fiercer piercer.

Shown us the way.