There is strength inside of pain
wisdom whispers soft and still
for I’ve learned to trust the rain.

Wild spirit trumps the brain
doctored by a solemn pill.
There is strength inside of pain.

Daily rushes done in vain
shout and tumble, push and spill.
I will listen for the rain.

Does it matter if I’m sane
labeled “crazy” “weak” or “ill”?
There is strength inside of pain.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained?
You may make your way with will;
I prefer to trust the rain.

Blizzards rise and breezes wane.
I fear neither drought nor chill.
Here is strength inside of pain;
Now I’ve learned to trust the rain.

The doctors in this world:
bearded people
who rub their eyes too much
and frown too often.

Harmless really, they say.
Just a chemical socket
to connect the loose hoses
of your brain.

As if a new planet would not
be made of your body:
an earthquake in your bones,
a volcano in your stomach.

As if the absence of your soul
with all its bitter colors
could not be called
a side effect.

I am a blind hamster on a creaky wheel.
I am the weight at the bottom of a sack of drowning kittens.
I am your overdue taxes with thirteen attachments and nine different forms.

My life is mud.
It is a paradise for sickly toads and preying swampthings.
I slog through it lik ea nine hundred pound woman climbing a flight of stairs.

What do I want?

Everything.

Ocean sounds echoing off the walls of my sanctuary.
Soft cushions topping heaps of treasure.
Hot tea in a rainstorm.
Lovers from here to Mazatlan.
Seven angelic children singing like bells at Christmas.

I want to stay young.
I want to be young, younger than I've ever been --

I want straight shoulders
and hairless skin
and white teeth
and perfect eyesight.

The grace of a dancer.
The vision of a priest.
The life of someone starting over,
wisdom remembered, energy building,
all in love with skylines and jet trails.

Mostly, I want your eyes
meeting mine
and telling me
I'm not alone in this.

Today I am drawn to Picasso's blue period.
looking for beach-side tragedies in grey fog,
seeing backs where I should see faces.
Everything is askew, backwards, sad.
There is no reason, just rhythm, a muffled drumbeat reminder:
You don't belong here.

You were never whole and don't know what that's like.
Where you are marching,
something at the edge pulls you toward
something else
and that's why you chase it.

My father says we are all part of the same hand.
The distance is nothing.
He pulls his fingertips together, pads kissing the tip of the thumb.
Separateness is an illusion, he says.
It can disappear in an instant.

I am the missing finger
the one lost in a thresher or blown off by a misfired gun.
There isn't even bleeding anymore.
I'm the itching ghost where the finger used to be.
What can you do?
Piece together a life, as if it matters.
Put one foot in front of the other.
March, march, march
Until the moment it slips.

Soften the focus, dim the lights
and maybe you're not such a ghost anymore.
It's that other life, the one on the other side,
and all you have to do is fall.