Nothing Survives Without Food
Evolution doesn’t care if you’re happy.
Genes want survival: sex and cake.
Nothing survives without food,
said the Buddha. You are hungry
for the story you already believe.
You’ve already waited for God,
in his Judge Judy robe,
to tell everyone you were right.
And maybe you were right. But
you already know how that thought goes,
how it ends. That story
doesn’t care about your pain.
Stay with her.
Your pain, I mean.
Your pain is in pain. She is anthropomorphizing
herself. She has nothing to eat but story,
and nowhere to rest.
Stay in the room. Offer her the couch
for as long as she needs. You are learning how to listen
to her terrible wailing, how to hear wailing,
though she will want to make it because.
How to hold her.
How to listen without telling her
her story,
how to bring her tea, and how
to starve her.
