They say there is no healer
Like a wounded one.
That, I suppose, would explain
How I came to know the now-familiar shapes
Of solace in grief,
Of community in rejection,
Of begging and pleading with someone
To recognize their own worth
And put the blade away.
When your every waking moment is an argument with yourself,
These conversations become second nature.
When did you jump
From one side of the keyboard to the other?
Teleology where none exists--
"If everything happens for a reason," I said,
"Might as well make myself useful."
Trust me, the irony of the coexistence of this
With imparting the toxicity of usefulness
Is duly noted.
At what point do your demons end
And those of others begin?
You won't know how to use an oxygen mask
Until you put your own on first,
And yet how is it that deploying someone else's
Happens in the same fluid movement,
As if they're tied together
By more than just air supply?
Perhaps it says something about you
How the solutions forged in your own grief
Are perpetually in use as molds
For those of another.
The casting of one set
Begets the creation of the other,
But the question of chicken and egg
Does nothing for the recipe of the omelet.
Is the necessity internal or external?--
--but I suppose first aid is the same
No matter who's doing it on whom.
They say there is no healer
Like a wounded one--
--is that a theory,
Or a law?