it hurts to be human

If we could just get to that hurt,
to that emptiness gnawing
so deeply inside
so very deeply that our hearts
had to harden,
had to close to protect
that soft-shelled creature inside,
like bats reaching
for the moonlight,
echoes carry us on shining wings, 
memories of how it was before
100 years of solitude forced us
to face the Light.

If we could but remember when it was
why it is
that it is
we who live within
locked cages,
holding our own keys
to our true nature,
human fallibility
infinite improbability
and truly incorruptible
almost imperceptible
and inaudible beneath our own breaths
disguised under dark cloth-- layers of flesh,
who burn away at the sight of fire in
holy accordance with the books of all the dead
obliged
to feel the wind,
quenching the holy flame,
calling in sad and lonely
songs of brine
in our turquoise names
and hollow reeds
before the sea of tears drowned
us and we had no choice
but to stop breathing
Light,
and this is how we are of air now,

and this is why
we must learn to fly on  human wings,
teach one another before
the world dies to all the hunger inside,
these colours that would pale
that
we do not even begin to know
how to dance to,
how to hold the melody
close to our lips.

We are white doves
hidden in the barbed tail of a manta ray
swimming with the wet passion of distant starlight
we are graceful flowers,
bending and swaying
to sing a song of praise,
howling with our beastliness.

If we could tell the story
in a sand mandala,
painted
not in harsh words and sounds that wound,

if only
we could touch one another
… deep enough
to pierce our heart of hearts,
bleeding …
through and through.

It hurts to be human

It hurts to love.