things will not be well
things will be awful
things will go bad
and things will
end

let this happen
be brave
enjoy what you can
and do not dwell
on anything

roll with the waves
sway with the wind
ignore the sun in your
eyes

plant your feet
and
keep growing

the sun will rise
tomorrow

you’re lucky, kid,
pretty lucky,
too lucky,
remember that,
kid.

you’re lucky
that nothing has ******* up too bad,
and that you born into a whole freaking lot,
and that even though some ****** things have happened
(what with Christina and the depression and the cancer)
that you’re still not bitter about them.

maybe it’s that you know
how lucky you are,
or maybe you’re just smart enough
to enjoy good things when they
happen.

either way,
you’re luckier than most.

you’ve had love,
from the day you were born to just moments ago,
and you’ve seen the world and all of its beauty,
and more than anything you appreciate it all,
at least to some degree.

but you’ll get greedy, kid,
start thinking you deserve the sunshine
and blue sky and other simple pleasures,

but nobody does, kid,
the human race traded in for that long ago,

we wanted more, and we got it,
but we’ll never be clean of what
we had to do to get it.

so be happy, kid, be happy,
because you are
lucky.

you’re luckier than most
and your luck isn’t going
to stop soon, hopefully.

stay smart
stay alert
stay focused

don’t let this
go to waste.

people mill about,
most tourists, some locals,
looking at all the shiny jewelry
and the hand-made palm-frond baskets,
feeling the money in their pockets
and the sun on the back of their necks,
and somewhere else in the world
the president plots a drone strike
on a desolate desert in Asia,
and two Dutch florists make love
after a beautiful anniversary dinner,
and a spider dies silently after falling
under the sandal of a Brazilian child,
and somewhere there is an old rotting
apple left out from the morning meal,
and somewhere a scientist is weeping
with joy at his or her new discovery,
and somewhere there is a boy weeping
at the loss of his first and only love,
and somewhere people make a toast,
and somewhere someone drinks alone,
and somewhere there is a man writing
poetry about a place he just returned
from.

and somewhere there is a day,
and somewhere there is a night,
and somewhere the sun is just setting,
and somewhere the sun is just about
to rise.

watch for the water
it will draw out first
and you will feel it pull at your legs
begging you to venture out into the sea
but you will overcome it
and that is her
trick

she will come back
with all of her strength
and you will be weak if
you are not careful

don’t get caught up in the tidal wave
when you feel the water drain away
dig your heels in deeper
tense your muscles
grit your teeth
brace yourself

watch for the water
it will draw out first
and then come back
with more strength
then you could ever
know

hands black and red
stained with work
and self-fulfillment

when you walk through your days
in the company of shadows, peace
will settle over you eventually, so
that when the sun returns, revealing
all that you could not see, you will
beg for your eternal night, once again,
wondering how anyone could stand
to see, every day, that which you now
are seeing for the very first time.

those who live in the light are strange
to you, they seem sullen, hateful, and
angry, they look at you with contempt
like old enemies, how rude of them,
you think, that they should turn guests
away like this, how rude of them to
sully our name, this must be effect
of their world’s ugliness, it must stain
them like wine, leaving deep, red marks
that can never come all the way out,
ruining them, forever, no matter what
they do.

and it is with this new perspective
that you return to your world of
dimness, happy to know that light
only begets harshness and despair.
it is with this new perspective that
you will remain in your shadows,
never changing, never wondering,
never worrying, keep it up, I say,
outside your path there is only pain,
and the tragedies of doubt, suffering,
and reality.

let me look at my hand
and see what I see: on it,
a blistered mass, healed
somewhat, but not fully,
and I can remember
the knife sliding in, so
easily, so effortlessly,
like it was meant to.

it hurts, the wound I bear,
and this is not the only one.

most of them are hardly
visible, hiding in my body,
in my mouth, in my heart,
and most of them are old,
no longer holding pain, only
disfiguration.

let me touch this wound,
feel it move with fresh
blood and toughen under
my pressure.

like all of them: it will heal.
time will give this flesh new
life and its stiffness will fade
eventually.

this hand has not grasped
its last knife, and not felt
its last cut.

let me look at my hand
and see only a scar, not
a burden.