Tilt

Transitions are tough
When you’re sure of the moment

When the moment is right
And you feel it’s enough
That the world could stop
You feel the wind
The grass
And the sun

It could stop
And you’d feel enough love
Enough peace
Right then

When it doesn’t stop
Like it could
The only reason must be
It’s too big to understand

Which is a relief
When you think about it
Because even a serious fuck up
By one human being
Isn’t going to put the pinball machine
On tilt

Strange

Strange
To be different somehow
Still lonely
But less terrified
The darkness less thick
The hopelessness
Less final

When things are at their worst
There’s a comfort in the return
To the place of total panic
So you fake through the day
The job
Plans with a friend
Desperate to return to the space
Alone
Where you can toss and turn
And self destruct
Because that at least
Is honest

For that urge
That need to self-immolate
To diminish
Even an inch

What it means exactly I’m not yet sure
But it’s something

Rest?

If I had a choice 

Most of the time these days

I would just let go

There’s a weariness in me

That goes way back

And when I tried to fix it

Raging against it 

It only grew 

I don’t blame myself 

It’s hard to know where it came from

Something way back 

Someplace way down 

Some hypersensitivity

Under-insulation

If I could drift away

Into a deep darkness

Rest 

It feels wrong to be this tired

When people twice my age are thriving 

But it’s been there for so long 

When I finally screamed it out loud 

I’m so tired 

The people who love me couldn’t hear

And the people who heard me and understood the pain

Just wanted to hurt me 

I wanted my father 

To wrestle me to the ground 

And hold me there

Until the weariness left me 

But my father’s a gentle man

And my pain hurt him 

But he couldn’t understand it 

There was someone who understood it

But he bottled it

Harnessed it

And turned me against the people I love

By all accounts

I should have died 

But hear I am

Here still 

Some part of me listened 

To the right music

There’s an image 

In something I wrote 

That rang true 

In the midst of the confusion 

And the absolute pain 

So I can’t pretend I’m any less tired 

But I’ll honour that image 

And my family 

And the music

And see

For a while 

What happens 

Today

Every time you don’t
Take a swig
Pop a pill
Slice the skin
Call the wrong person

It’s a victory
Even if you do it tomorrow
Today still counts

Yitzchak (Force)

One way of understanding why
Some people have a hard time with
The usual routines of life
Is the force of their thoughts

If each thought comes with the force
Of a blow
And the thought piled on top of it
The crack of a hammer
By the end of ten minutes
You’re gasping for breath
Mouth open

And if someone saw you
And asked you why
All you can say is
‘I’m thinking’

I once read that Truth comes in blows
And it’s hard to disagree

When your thoughts carry such
Force
And you hit on a Truth
There’s a feeling of wholeness
And joy
That shudders quietly through your body
And you pray
Leave me here
This is more than I ever thought possible
This is what I’ve been searching for
This is who I am
Yitzchak

But you can’t stay there
Not yet
And if Truth and Joy
Shudder quietly through the body
Whole at last

Fear and pain and shame
Hit with blows too
Of terrible Force
Piling on top of each other

Until you want to bash your head on the wall
To stop them
From ganging up
Like kids in a schoolyard
Just old enough to hate

Anxiety
Depression
These are words people use
To try and explain something about the
Force of thoughts
And what they can do
To people who love the world
With a Force
That can sometimes backfire

I have seen my thoughts backfire
And have so far survived
But I have also known real joy
And love

For people who desire an end to the Force
of their thoughts
As I sometimes do
I assign no shame
And reach out my hand
(Not too forcefully)
In love
And understanding

But to those who use the Force of their thoughts for harm
For hate
And to hurt
I raise my fist against you
And pray you are blotted out
Like a shadow on the sun

Traitors

There have been songs in my head all my life
And some of them are traitors
Some promise relief
But mean death

Some promise comfort
And are lies

I pray that the few true ones
Are stronger than all them that are false
And grant me enough strength
To do whatever more must be done

Comfort

Comfort can come in strange forms
Lying in bed not sleeping
My mind cycles through all
My fears

Which are admittedly
Greater than I could have imagined

I think that happens as you get older
Things matter more
Not less

Then I start listing all the self-destructive
Things I could do
Right now
To give expression
To my
Exhaustion
Doubt
Rage
Shame

It’s a long list
And a tempting one
Familiar

But tonight there’s a voice
That kind of smiles and sighs
And says
‘You’ve tried everything on this list
Literally everything
And more
It did you no good
And you’re still here.

So tonight maybe
Save yourself
Some money and grief
Close your eyes
Settle down
And go the fuck to sleep’

So I did

At the Doc’s

I’ve been here many times
Some visits hurt more than others

Today I’m exhausted
But unbowed
And certain
That there is no correlation
Between what the world calls
Normal
And your value or worth

That can be tough to remember
But it’s as good a lesson as any
To emerge with
After half a life

Scars outside
And within
But dignity
Intact

Mourner’s Kaddish

יתגדל ויתקדש שמה רבא. בעלמא די ברא כירעותה וימליך מלכותה בחייכון וביומיכון ובחיי דכל בית ישראל בעגלא ובזמן קריב ואמרו אמן. יהא שמה רבא מבורך לעולם ולעלמי עלמיא. יתברך וישתבח ויתפאר ויתרומם ויתנשא ויתהדר ויתהלל שמא דקודשה בריך הוא. לעלא מן כל ברכתא ושירתא תשבכחתא ונחמתא דאמירן ועלמא. ואמרו אמן. יהא שלמא רבא מן שמיא וחיים עלנו ועל כל ישראל ואמרו אמן. עושה שלום במרומיו הוא יעשה שלום עלינו ועל כל ישראל ויאמרו אמן

When it's time

I call to my grandmother
In the margins and above
To Anna in pain
And now in relief
To my 9 friends
To the world's angel

I wish for the proper intent
For the strength to survive
To remember that I bring joy
And to join you all when it's time

Journey/Destination

The problem with worrying about the future all day
Is that it’s hard to be present

Somedays

Somedays I feel the wind blowing
For myself
And those I love

Its comfort
Its wisdom
Its safety and peace

Its promise that life
Is worth living

Somedays the sun fills me
With courage to move towards
A destination
An end
A place of rest

Somedays the wind is blowing
And the sun is shining

And it takes everything I have
To get out of bed

On those days I'd rather be
Anyone else
Besides this breathing raw nerve
Overexposed
To the blowing wind
The shining sun
To the music in my head
That soaks me
Like a wrung out sponge
In waves
Of Right and Wrong
And the knowledge that
Everything matters

If you’re looking

If you’re looking for God
He’s in the wind
On a hot day

The breeze that blows
The extra bit
But not too much
While you’re walking
Your dog

God is in the moment of peace
That spreads across a full table
Of friends or family
And lasts for a moment
But long enough for everyone to know
It happened

Shoes on a beach

Anticipating a loss
I dreamed it last night

One moment he was there with us
At the table
Quieter
Like he is these days

And I told my cousin
To hold on a second
So he could speak
Or was it so he could hear me
Or was it so I could feel him
For certain
In peace

And then he was walking
And he was gone
But we knew he had walked
Straight into the water

Because we were on a beach now
And we found his shoes

I wept
And then I woke

HaNachash

VeHaNachash Haya Arum Mikol Chayat HaSadeh Asher A'sah HaShem Elokim

When you see the serpent
Unmasked
At last
It's an experience

Disbelief
That not only does he exist
But that after years of him
Winding around
Your body
And even
Inside your insides
You can see him clearly

Terror
At his strength
At the sound
Of his bells

Rage
That he grafted himself
To your deepest places
Your private hurts
Your sacred prayers
Your strongest desires
To heal

Grief
That something exists
That would feed on
Your holiness
And twist it
Into despair

But in the ultimate chamber
Of the heart
Hope
And Faith
That the serpent's true nature
Was revealed to you
By the Lord

So that you could free yourself
At last
And in Joy
Return to Him











 

Hineni

Asleep
In a place beyond a dream
That I’ve known before
And hope to return to
In time

Wake
Slowly
In stages
So as to remember
The deeper place beyond dreams

And then in this world
Finally recognize
Seven notes
For what they are
Death
Deceit
Despair

They cannot win
He cannot win

——————————

God
I am here
Hineni

(T’)Shuva

When memories return
Especially older ones
They can be a blessing or a weight

But when they’re a blessing
Well
It’s a joy
Even the ones that are tinged with sadness

Reading an old letter
From a father to his father
Tears falling
Recognizing his grief in yours
Wanting to comfort him
And be comforted

An older memory still
Your own grief
For something bigger
Than you understand
And somehow still
The comfort is there
From a father with his own hurts
From an aunt
And of course
From a mother

And after the grief
A pause
A breath
And a step

Sometimes there are memories
Which were one thing then
And something else
Altogether
Now

What I thought was fresh air
An open door
A font of strength

Was a chain
An infected wound
A sentence
A lie

I see now
And reject you
Utterly
And I leave you to your own devices
(To wither? To rot)

While I return
With all those I embrace
To the bosom
Of love

אנא אדוני הושיעה

אנא אדוני הושיעה
אנא אדוני הושיעה
הושיעה נא

אנא אדוני הצליחה
אנא אדוני הצליחה
הצליחה נא

VHS Tape

When you are with someone you love
Towards the end of his life
I find that everything you shared with him
Runs through your head
Like an old home movie

I am grateful that
There are more good times than bad
Because the good times can heal
Where the bad times have hurt

Rest

It's the hardest thing to find
But once in a while it comes
And when I've had it

I wake

And see the orange sherbet sunlight
Of the early morning
Stream into my room
Beam onto the walls

And I'm certain
(Almost?)
That the best is yet to come

A knock at the door

When suicide comes knocking these days

It’s not the same as before

Not that when he comes

It doesn’t hurt

The image these days is to cut out my right eye in a circle 

Gouge it out with a knife

Like there would be some release from pain 

After that

When suicide first came into my life 

It was the shock beyond shocks 

Against everything I stood for

To persevere, to commit to others 

And yourself

To heal through facing pain 

Alone and together

But things built up 

And built up again 

In a way I didn’t understand 

And when they finally burst

There was no stopping

The flood

At first all I understood

Was that I’d been squeezed too hard

Between competing pressures

A head in a vice 

A grape that had popped 

Too much

As a kid I felt the pressures

And didn’t understand why it was so strong

It made making choices difficult 

Too much riding on each decision 

If you feel 

The people around you very strongly

It can be hard to make room

For yourself 

So when suicide comes back now

These days 

I tell myself 

I live 

In a place that I love

There are people who love me

That I am part of something much bigger

Than myself 

That God has a plan 

That I’m on the right side 

And at some point

I’ll be able to rest