(to an artist) [POETRY]

You search for meaning in misery
Suffering
To cut yourself into pieces
Suffering
To spill enough blood
Suffering
To justify you being here and him being gone

Spring is here
The Texan wind will blow on your face
Hot and hard and warm and gentle
Still
Suffering

I wonder if in a thunderstorm
If you could sit outside and watch it play out
And not suffer
To watch the violence of the lightning and wind
And think
“Zeus and Hera are fighting, and it is beautiful”

I wonder if you could go to the grave my Mom is at
Over at Saginaw Cemetery
And appreciate the beauty she left behind
And think
“Hades and Persephone took what was theirs, and it is beautiful”

I remember when I realized being a pure thing would not save me.
I remember when I realized I was a little lamb without a mother.
And I remember
Knowing that beauty and suffering were interchangeable
Not when you broke a bone
In the things that could bother
A little lamb without his mother
Is that suffering or beauty?
I don’t know.
But I hear you suffering