Coffee.

Sitting in a small coffee shop
I sit, waiting for a friend
Waiting for the sunlight to be just right.
Rearranging the pieces of my world scattered about on this
Scarred tabletop
I can put them together, today
I have most of my puzzle-shaped bits
And some of them even fit.

I have always.

Two steps forward
Three steps back
Fourth step sideways and
Throw it all away
It just takes one bad day
One wrong move
One.
Too.
Many.
Nothing to say, nothing that
Could ever help but that
I know.
More than any of us should,
I know.
And while it would be more awful than anything I could imagine,
While my every day would be darker, the whole world lose a layer of meaning that I would never get back.
Despite all of that,
I would understand.
God knows how I would understand.

Never Let Me Go.

"Maybe none of us really understand what we've lived through or feel we've had enough time"

Six-and-a-half.

When my patients answer the question:
"So I can best evaluate the effectiveness of the pain medication I am about to administer: how would you rate your pain, from a zero to a ten -
zero being no pain,
and ten being the worst pain ever ever"
-with-
"Ten."
I think: you haven't met my father.  You have no idea what a "Ten" is.
He eats pain for breakfast, and smiles back.
Talk to me after you've fractured a femur.
Let alone both.
At least, talk to me after you've experienced true bone pain.
Talk to me after you've had that baby,  (but also after you've given it up to someone else so as to also have to have given up the wonderfully healing effects of oxytocin...)
Come to me after you have buried a child,
After you have watched a good man die.
Or left your dignity in the dust for naught but Love,
and while, in the meantime, I won't withhold medication or treat you any different on the surface...
Talk to me then,
And I won't judge you.
I am thankful every day that I don't know what "Ten." feels like.
But the days I see what it looks like,
I am thankful for you.
For your ignorance,
For my forgiveness.
For our shared understanding that you're afraid and so am I,
But that neither of us
Really know.

Black-and-Blue

I don't want your future,
No, I don't need your past
I'll just take you here
And now and maybe it will last
Forever
And maybe we will turn and walk away.

But know in this that I still need you
Here and now that I still want you
Lift your eyes, boy
The light still shines through
I always have and do still love you.

In the arms of the ocean.

"No need to pray, no need to speak...
Though the pressure is hard to take
It's the only way I can escape
It seems a heavy choice to make..."

"I'm not giving up,
I'm just giving in."

Wish for the stars.

"I love the stars," you said.
I loved you for that.
That and the sparks in your eyes,
The books you read and
The secret smile we shared.

I reach and grasp at straw
At the sharp grass blades outside
My door.
A present, here,
A fantasy world I'm not sure I ever wanted
Real.
Yes or no,
To commit or back down
To go through
Or be true?
Truth is, I'm just not there.
And I don't know if I'll ever be
But I'll do it anyway because
You want me to.

"I wish," you said
Or at least I saw it in your eyes
I wish too,
I wish lots of things,
That I could give up wandering nights
By the river,
Over a freeway-
L' appel du vide
Singing in my every step.