Poetry 143: Use of Self

Use of Self

I want this pain

to soften me.

I need to know

it served
a purpose
beyond the
suffering that
is always here.

 

Like a potter

kneading out
the week-old
clay, I must be
be reused. 

The bruise on

my left hipbone.
The scar underneath
my right knee.

 

The night terrors

that wake me up
screaming.
The inability
to pass
a mother’s day
without a
renewed heartache.

 

Pain wears

us down-

if we are lucky.

It takes us

down to zero
where the one
and only response
can be
kindness.

 

I grow softer

by the minute,
and I’m only
at the half-way
mark.

 

But what happens

if this use of
self becomes
a transfiguration
of Self? 

Would "I" evaporate

into thin
air?
Would the line
between you
and me finally
blur beyond
recognition?

 

In the matrix
of divine reason,
in which we
are continuously
born into this life,
can pain actually
remove those
inner caverns
of hardened wounds
and frozen undercurrents
so that a soft underbelly
of that which
is really real 
might be
revealed?

 

Perhaps, she says.

God willing,

let me

find out.

-Me