Sometimes it’s not so easy
To look past all the hurt
And into the future where you’ve become
Less like the avaricious black hole
Sucking all my light like silver from a tooth
Like mercury watersheds converging on foot
To run me out of my comfort zone
Maybe you were doing me a favor
And I couldn’t see it then
Maybe you were teaching me how to know
The difference between right and wrong
Between what’s free and what’s needed
And how I might have to work a little harder
We were all taught to hold our futures like matchsticks
And strike them on a hope of having it better
But they didn’t warn us about the flames growing blue
With the passing of every moment
And that our fingers would burn
If we didn’t hurry up and choose
And I know this world moves too fast
To find yourself in the roar of motion
That’s why you’ve gotta hang on
To the parts you know are there
The parts that feel real to you
Concrete and corporeal like the coldness of a headstone
Unmistakably human like the pleas of a dying man
And we’ll be there soon enough
To the cemetery gateway of whatever comes next
So while we’re here let’s be gentler
Let’s never hold grudges and promise
To overlook the stupid insignificancies
Of which we are all guilty
This loss you thought you needed
To break out your front teeth
You’re just being a descriptor
For something already described
In the bones of everyone who ever set foot here
On this thriving planet where we all fail
So miserably to come clean with ourselves
It’s no measure of bravery
Making the connection that we’re not really living
But dying with every breath we hitch
In tired lungs expanding the tree of our barrenness
Bare-boned creatures as we are
But I’m here to say it doesn’t have to be winter
Every time you open your door
It doesn’t have to be night
Every time you feel the claw marks of loneliness
Creeping up your back like cancerous invaders
You’ve gotta let the light in
Because the sky wants to talk to you
Just as much as you talk to it
On cold nights when the stars seem so far away
Instead of pouring out your endless litany
That warmth in your bones
That’s a clean bill of health
A brain stem regenerating from nothing left to work with