Come, rest your weary body in my arms;
your tattered thoughts rewoven as you sleep.
My spirit wrapped around you, safe and warm.

Cradled up against me, held from harm,
your dreams are free in slumber, still and deep.
Come, rest your weary body in my arms.

Your childlike face protected from the storm
of daily waking nightmares: I will keep
my spirit wrapped around you, safe and warm.

Seductive demons, stealthy in their charms
may bring a restless stirring as they creep;
come, rest your weary body in my arms.

Should you be stung awake by buzzing swarms
of memories, strafing you until you weep,
my spirit's wrapped around you, safe and warm.

The day-to-day may fill you with alarm;
let night sow gentle comfort you may reap.
Come, rest your weary body in my arms;
my spirit wrapped around you, safe and warm.

To live life in intensive clarity
you must prepare yourself a lonely house.
A friend or three, of course. Perhaps a spouse
or three, as well, though even they won't see
how deep the silent spring that feeds your soul.
Intensity, in truth, is rarely loud
or boastful; more like one who's been allowed
perspective broad enough to see the whole.
Many come to visit, few will stay.
Some believe one lesson will suffice
until they understand in full the price,
the cost it takes to find and walk your Way.
For wisdom's earned not doing as you're bid
by those who knew much better than you did.

The things we say to one another:
we could
choose
to make them mean something.

I could tell you that I love you,
even though we've never
really met. You could
tell me that you're dying
and it scares you.
We could talk about the rise and fall
of injection-moulded empires,
the rise and fall of your
mother's chest, as she
took her last breath.
We could vow to behead tyrants together.
We could promise
that we'd never fall victim
to that same sickness. We could
compare our hurts and find a
connection
in our mutual pain. We
could try to share our loneliness,
and maybe the world
would be less lonely.

Or at least we could
speak,
like you're a person
and I'm a person, like we're both
made of the same
beautiful, doomed matter,
only separated
by social convention and
accidental skin;
we could say something worth saying.

Instead: plastic bag tax, The Match,
weight loss and where to buy
the best factory-seconds shoes,
the televised finals of something or other,
the rising cost of corned beef, the
obligatory conversation piece
about the weather.

Can't we talk
just a little bit
bigger than this?