Suffering and standing back up

There is love and life and an endless pursuit of the things that break our wings,

The hand seeking to touch the flame which has already singed it,

The willingness of a beaten dog to lick the offending fist.

A child toddles into the sunlit room and falls down,

Cries and swallows and stands back up again.

We all keep moving,

Breathing in a way that makes everything steadier,

Safer for those who have already been burdened by sadness.

The thorns will always be there,

But that doesn’t mean you should ever stop touching the roses.

Paint them red with your own blood and forgive them for the pain.

Put them in the vase and watch them die and then repeat.

Everything is about starting over,

Turning the record over

And sipping more champagne with a sad smile.

Hold hands with those you love,

Forgive them if they’ve hurt you,

Understand that this hurt will never make you hate them,

Only love them more.

Swallow the sadness,

Swallow the anger,

Make yourself whole again,

Only to be refracted into shards of glass and spite.

We are meant to bite our own nails and choke on the blood

And accept the taste of the things we cannot avoid.

We are human and we are love

And we are the sum of all the things we break

And have been broken by.

And every morning we wake up in our crumpled beds

With the same amount of adoration for the bruised purple sunrise,

And if that is not wonderfully tragic,

I don’t know what is.