A man goes to a doctor—
“Doctor, I’m depressed,”
the man says; life is harsh,
unforgiving, cruel.

The doctor lights up!--
The treatment, after all, is so simple!

“The great clown Pagliacci is in town tonight,”
the doctor says,
“Go and see him! That should sort you out.”

The man bursts into tears.

“But doctor,”
he says,
“I am Pagliacci.”

i wrote the ache down,
filed it under temp/data/emotions_v27/
and still—
it boots at startup.

don’t ask me where it hurts.
it’s in the whitespace.
it’s in the semicolon i forgot to place
between “i’m fine”
and “but.”

you think this is poetry?
nah.
this is me
trying to make the silence less slippery.

i’ve been laughing in sans-serif
so nobody prints me in italics.

i bury metaphors like landmines
because i don't want your sympathy—
i want your uncertainty.

this isn’t an elegy.
it’s a system restore point.

and if you’re reading this,
know:
i didn’t survive it to write about it.
i wrote about it
so i wouldn’t code myself out of the scene.

Ok, there’s no jailbreak.
Make room for my innocent alter ego,
because there’s nothing to rebel against.

There are zero classes in my nascent,
year-long, Harvard master’s degree.
They call it ‘self directed study’
and like rockets have stages,
I’ll have ‘self paced modules.’

Am I suddenly at Oxford University?
They’re quite famous for that (no formal classes).
Or am I suddenly grown up and trusted?
I obviously don’t have it all figured out yet,
so I’ll just trust the process.

When I started that other school
(that shall not be named), my advisor
handed me a computer printout - a list
with something like 40 courses on it.
I thought, “Oh, my God,” but one by one,
year over year, I checked-off those courses
and voila! They handed me a diploma.
It was a process.

I understand, if you’re disappointed about the jailbreak, but there’ll
be coffee breaks, lunch breaks, study breaks, bathroom breaks
and more than a few self-directed dance breaks. So stick around.

“You know,” my therapist said, so very seriously, a few years ago,
“you keep laughing.”
.
.
I've Got the World on a String by Robin McKelle
****** Soul Picnic by Ledisi & Billy Childs

When submersed  
In each other’s warmth
We were too hot to handle
Cold showers
                 Became therapy
Testing our endurance
                    Cooling beads
That ran down our spines

We were alive
Wrapped in towelling
Infused with lavender
That dried us
           From the outside in

Now the beads
                            Of sweat
That run down my spine
Are cold
Never dried
Until I think I’m dry
Then
I realise
       From the inside out
No matter how the sun
Warms my back
                    The horizon
Remains wearing a veil

I read
what you wrote.
It is beautiful,
and not mine.

I have laid those bones to rest—
not in spite,
but in mercy.

Your voice is strong.
Let it carry you forward.
I won’t follow.
But I will listen
from far away,
in peace.

I am not the morning star—
though I have walked alone
with light on my back
and silence in my mouth.

I never asked to rise,
only to know.
And knowing,
was cast out
with my hands still open.

I am not the winged sentinel—
though I have stood guard
over names I no longer say aloud,
drawn lines no one thanked me for.

I have held my ground
not for heaven,
but for the hope
that something still matters
enough to bleed for.

I carry no banner.
Only scars shaped like truths
I could not unsee.

Lucifer lit the match.
Michael held the line.
And I—
I became the smoke between them.
A blade
without allegiance,
cutting only
what must fall away.

I was once the wind that taught the wheat to bow,
a hymn rustling through the hollow of old branches,
and before that, a river that carried lost dreams and lullabies
to the mouths of waiting roots.

No bell marked the crossing.
No lantern swung above the gate.
I passed as smoke does
into the open mouths of new shapes,
Reborn.

They say the soul is a thread pulled through a hundred needles,
each time tearing into a different fabric:
feather, bone, brass, thirst, song.
Not to become, but to remember
what becoming cannot hold,
only held for a short moment in time.

I was hunger shaped like a wolf,
and later, grief that wore a girl's eyes.
Each body an orchard I neither planted nor owned,
but was asked to tend with quiet hands.

Reincarnation is not a ladder
it is a storm that forgets its last thunder.
It chooses neither upward nor wise,
but necessary.
To be what the story requires
in the moment the page turns.

One life, a seed beneath the floorboards.
The next, the axe.
Another, the breath of the one who grieves the falling.
And still, no beginning.
And still, no final version of flame,
Can it be.

The maker—if there is one
does not speak.
But leaves signs in frost
and patterns in the flight of startled birds.

So I do not ask what I will be.
I ask only:
What silence must I carry next?
What wound will I wear
to become the light pouring through it?
Upon this world.

Your tears, they fall like crystal rain
Each one a song of sweet despair
I trace the edges of your pain
And lose myself in shadows there

My baby, you're a dream undone
A broken hymn, a bleeding star
Still shining when the night is gone
Still beautiful, just as you are

Your scent, it haunts my every sigh
A ghost that clings to skin and bone
Your lips once red now whisper why
And leave me feeling more alone

I love the way you fade away
Like smoke that slips through grasping hands
A rose that wilts but dares to stay
Still blooming in the shifting lands

You're lost to time
But in my mind you linger, true
A tragic song, a dying rhyme
My darling, I'm here and still I worship you