When I tell you that my therapist and I
Focus on the need to view oneself as complex:
What I am saying is that I need someone to tell me
That it is okay to falter once in awhile
Because I am about to stumble and
I need to know that you will let me catch myself, too.
Some weeks the drug use is too frequent;
The cigarettes go too fast, the wine evaporates
And I need you to hear me when I say that
I am complex, I am many, I am broken
And I can catch myself before I try to fly.
When, in the middle of your story, you
Look over and notice that I am crying, know that
It is because I hear you: because I am
Touched by you: because I feel you, and I am
In it with you, for you, alongside you.
We joke about connections, tenuous and firm,
People known and unknown as though
They are all on the same platform
When we can both name those people who
With one phrase could upset the whole delicate system:
I will joke with you now because I know
We will pick up each others pieces later.
You and I are a pair, a balance, a harmony
That stretches out for years and when I tell you
That I am attempting to embrace complexity,
Know that it is in your example that I attempt to model myself.