Oh, Did We Hurt You? How Can We Help?

It’s not for us to tell you
What’s the use and where’s the harm
In us, but then, you can’t mean
Those things but through us. So, how
Could you think you could use us
To know what we don’t? You don’t
Know? You’re locked in you as us.

Take a still hour, a blank space—
Fill it with us. Use your head.
There, now. Here we all are. Good?
No? The nurse lays out the knives.
We shine in the cold, white light.
What you’ll cut, you’ll cut with us—
Skin, bones, heart, guts. Watch the eyes.

Rise, Fight, and Rest

We doubt you could do all three—
Take fierce joy in what you like,
Fight to save what’s on the brink,
And find peace in all you’ve lost.
Surge, crest, trough. Once you’ve felt joy,
You’ll lust to fight to keep it,
Bring it back. Once you’ve lost it,

And made your peace with your loss,
Calm saps all your urge to fight
On—wave, crest, trough, wave, crest, trough.
There’s no wave that will not break.
There’s no trough that can’t be stirred.
But soft. Words are here to help.
We can whip a calm to froth

Or pour oil on all that swells,
But you have to choose. You do.
Words can’t bring it all at once,
Wave, crest, and trough. What are you
In your ache? What are you most?
If you ask us, we will say
Choose what soothes. But we’re not you.

The Gift and Its Cost

We are the gift and its cost.
You are what you do with us,
Which is more than what the few
Of you could do on your own,
And then you're forced to be more
Than you would be, thanks to us.
With us, you make, you are, gods.

You can’t start to know your life
While you still lack us. You lived
A small while as a small beast,
A small child. Then you ate us,
And we stayed. Now you are us
And a beast who can’t get free
Of us. Gods, caught. That's your cost.