Bed world –
The same old station
where every morning
is a fall from the Grace
of sleep and narcotic dreaming

Cradled by –
What is
This is
Here is
Wondering just how many times
I can write the same old story
into a poem or a song

Grabbing the soft, white flesh
of my inner arm and pinching it
Hard
To retrieve a trace memory of knowing
it is always and forever new
Every bloody step is a new step
Even though
Even though
it is a well worn trail
even though I often walk it
on my knees

So – thank you Teachers
for teaching me that
You know who you are

Remembering the broken girl
The almost didn’t make it girl
The girl who fell into the kindness
of lesbians – the ravaged tenderness
of Leonard’s songs
and a few other mysterious gifts
along the way
The somehow
just about managed
to hitch a ride
into her future,
girl

Here I stand
That very girl
Weathered now
On the cusp of being old
praying often
for an early ticket home

You could say
Nothing much has changed
Look –
You still go to bed a lot
and lust after death

It would be true
and not true
to say that

The distance between bed world now
and bed world then
is an epic trek
along that well walked road
A pilgrimage of repetition
A human prayer

I have left a few piles of rags
on the byways
and highways
Things I thought I’d never leave
Things that mattered
and then didn’t

Now, the weight
of my old friend, depression
has space
where there was
only noise
and in that space and quiet
I am surprised
to catch myself
smiling