(AUDIO) oh, my troubled lovely

I wrote this poem to keep myself from falling off the edge I was peering over. Audio recorded at a bustling coffehouse.

                              ***** 

oh my troubled lovely,
oh my weeping daisy,
oh my fading candle,
oh my broken beauty,
oh my crumbling stronghold,

stay with us 
here on Earth 

don’t rapture yourself;
~ we need you - we need you 
- we need you - we need you 

before you decide to leave, 

sit with me here in your unmade self 
at the edge of your unmade bed

and listen to me
tell you one last secret 

oh my tearful songbird,

if you can find
a way to 
survive long

enough

someday you’ll become
the answer to somebody
else’s most desperate prayer 

by just being there in 
the same room that they are in 
 ~ as they gently fall apart 

and in that moment 
you won’t need to say anything 

you’ll just drape your hands
over theirs like a Good Friday altar cloth
until they believe in resurrection again 

~ that’s why you can’t give up

your life will someday be the rainbow at the end of someone else’s storm

if you aren’t still here
when they fall off
the bridge 

then who will be there to catch them? 

I know it’s not quite fair
~ but your life isn’t just yours

it also belongs to that person
who is going to need you 
to be alive later 

you are part of the community 
of unintended angels 

who has a sacred calling 

of surviving your darkest night 
so someday you can be the 
sunrise for somebody else who
will need you to prove to them 
that daybreak always returns 

oh my clouding diamond,
oh my shaking sunflower, 
oh my doubting saint,
oh my disappearing moon,
oh my quieting symphony 

stay here
with us
on Earth 

because if you do 

you will save a dozen lives
by first saving your own 

it’s the great pyramid scheme
of hope

you must persist
so they can watch how you persist 

turn this riptide you
are drowning under

into a ripple 
of hope 
that stretches 
through time 

that you can ride until
you reach that one moment
in your life where you’ll find yourself
in a quiet room with somebody
who wants to become a shadow

and you’ll be able to say to them
with authority the same thing 
I am saying to you right now:

“oh my troubled lovely,
oh my weeping daisy,
oh my fading candle,
oh my broken beauty,
oh my crumbling stronghold 

stay with us 
here on Earth 

don’t rapture yourself
we need you...”

~ unintended angels
 of comfort, 
pray for us ~

(john roedel)

art by the singularly amazing Charlie Mackesy