You Are Alive

The earth has a poem for you

Close your eyes,
 hold out your hands
and accept it...

Do you feel the wind?
The falling rain?
The winter snow
Numbing a black and blue sky?
The sun growing tomorrows?
The moon putting them to bed?

A hand
 you turn
To touch the palm--
Tracing the lifeline,
 your fingertip knows the way.
The echoes of those
We cannot keep
Though we hold tightly anyway.

Close your eyes
Do you feel the rhythm
Fall and rise?

You are alive.
You are alive.

Take that title
And run with it.
Make love to it.
Bring it to the lake.
Put it beside your pillow
So you can kiss it when you wake.

You are alive.

Take your poem
out on the town.

Show it off to a friend;
Get them to laugh
And spit their drink
 all over the page

Bring it to the park
And get its shoes dirty.
Push it on the swing.
Slide it down the slide.
Spin it dizzy on the merry-go-round.

Drive it home.
Open doors for it.

Keep it always,
For safe keeping--
Just don't keep it in the safe.

You don't have to memorize every line.
It's probably best not to...

But the title
You may want to keep
At the front of your mind.

A whisper in the library
a shout through the rustling trees

You are alive.

Truth

I want to throw the truth out of my mind, but I'm afraid a friend will reach out on a reflex and catch it. I want to say I'm not okay, without those words slipping out and hanging on for dear life to your smile,

until its weight is too much for your sweet smile to bear
 and the words fall--leaving a frown there.

I don't want to lie.
I want to tell you there are nights that I cry

And cry
And cry
And cry

I camp out in my room
With worry
And we forget to close the door
And a gang called "fear" comes galloping in,
 wearing masks that even closed eyes can see
The end of the world is just behind them

As they get closer and closer
The end of the world
Is still just behind them

I get lost searching for my breath
Surrounded by a forest of death

And that's not the kind of neighborhood
I want to walk a beautiful soul
 like you through

So I leave you a map
To a false place
With the design of
A happier face

Maybe one day
I'll meet you there

If I could sleep long enough
to dream a way out
of this nightmare

Maybe one day
 I'll meet you there