Passage

"Hold on...

Hold on to your self,

This is gonna hurt like hell." --Sarah McLachlan

There's no short way.

Move through it

Like moving through a fever--

Move through it

Like waist deep water--

Dark below,

Dark above.

The night is full of tigers.

Oh yes,

They have broken hearts, too;

Tooth and claw no more use than

Vapor

Against these enemies

Whose names are

Pain

Loss

Fury

Hopelessness.

Lay down with them all.

Lay down with tigers.

In the morning, you'll rise up off their sleeping warmth

With stripes of ambivalence and experience

On your body, too.

Go stumbling back to the farm.

They'll know you are not the same.

You'll know it, too.

The night will stay with you

In every black stripe,

But when the fever breaks

And the tide goes out,

You can walk through the world as a woman again--

In the noon,

Tomorrow, or next week or next year,

Someone will see you and say,

"Oh,

You are so beautiful."

You will dip your head,

And once again it will be your choice

What you want to do.

__________

Thank you to the tigers, who continue to inspire me.