SAY THE WORDS

For One Shot Wednesday

All life is suffering...

the Buddhists say.

Now THERE'S a rosy forecast for ya.

Imagine your TV weatherman saying:

Partly cloudy tonight with a 10% chance of showers--

and the extended outlook:

MISERY THROUGHOUT ETERNITY!

All life is suffering...

And you say to yourself well surely that can't be--

and you try to think back to a time when you were truly happy,

lips fastened to your mother's breast,

until one day, quite by chance, you discover that dad

has been granted the same privileges.

And that is your first taste...

of betrayal.

Time passes...

And it's like a slap in the face the first time you realize

you're not the be all and end all of anybody's universe--

and that girl, that wonderful girl you think about every waking moment

of your day--wondering whether she's thinking of you--

while all the time she's ecstatic because she's planning

a two week trip to Mexico with some of her friends,

that she intends to tell you about the day before she leaves...

and you KNOW that someday she will give you an emotional kick

in the cojones--and you KNOW that it's coming,

and still you stand there with that stupid grin on your face.

All life is suffering...

And you find yourself a woman--a beautiful woman-

and she takes you to her bed and says:

Touch me here,

and ooh, touch me here,

and oh baby, touch me HERE!

And you are beaming in the afterglow

and you say, OH, please SHOW me who you are...

and she says: Don't touch me...THERE.

Time passes...

You trust no one, you believe in nothing,

and life becomes a nasty cycle of dump or be dumped--

and you begin to wonder just when it was that you became numb--

and still you have the unmitigated BALLS

to hope for a happy ending!

All life is suffering...

And soon you've forgotten why you get up in the morning--

you do it by rote, as if you'd be letting the world down if you weren't one

of the masses of asses sitting at the stoplight

trying to find something worthwhile on the radio--

a favorite song---anything to medicate the pain...

Medicate, masturbate, hibernate...

And you get up in the morning and go into work day after day

like a good dog, where the boss treats you like another piece of the furniture

and he almost sits on you and crushes you with his fat ass.

All life is suffering...

And you're convinced that the best thing to be in life

is a masochist--but that doesn't work either because

masochists must surely suffer when they're not in pain.

And if all life is suffering then the question is:

How then must we live?

How then must we live?

And until we find the answer,

this thing that we do--

this spilling of one's guts onto the page,

this POETRY,

becomes your only salvation...

and mine.

For I can take the pain--

work it, shape it, and transform it into a gift

that you will willingly accept

because you know that it's been there all along

like the refrain from a song

that you've heard a thousand times before

but somehow

it's different now...

and all I need to do is say the words.