There’s a difference

Running a marathon alone

And running it with another

In both you end up bone tired

But we can collapse together

And speak of memory

Along the way

Offering insight for the next

While taking care to watch

That we each stay on the path

And finish the race

Maybe in pain…

But in good company

As we join our voices

And cry in relief

I am quick to anger – on the inside. On the outside, I am generally neutral to goofy.

Over the years I have come to learn that most people who create pain in other people’s lives through violence, theft, inappropriate behaviour, misplaced affections, verbal, emotional or sexual abuse and abuse of authority or position over another do so as a form of transference.

What I mean is that people in pain, particularly those who are isolated and alone, seek ways to move their pain to other people.

They act in ways to ease their pain, sometimes knowing full well they are hurting others and sometimes oblivious to it… but the pain doesn’t stop, it simply spreads like a cancer.

When I was younger, my response would be to fight. To punch someone in the face (or in one unfortunate instance punching someone in the back of the head and breaking my hand).

For a brief moment, I would feel better in the way novocaine dulls the pain. But it would not be long before the pain came flooding back along with consequences.

So. Many. Consequences.

Consequences have the not surprising ability to complicate an already painful circumstance often leading to more pain and the cycle continues.

Moving pain does not deal with the source of that pain. Until the source is dealt with, the pain remains and grows no matter how you seek to change your circumstance or offload the pain to others.

As I have matured, I have come to view compassion as the most valuable response to others (and ourselves) when they dump their pain in your life.

This can be hard because when people hurt us, our instinct is to hurt back either in self-defence or vengeance. We also definitely need to still protect and defend ourselves and our loved ones no matter the source of the pain, but our response needs to be measured and tempered by compassion.

A broken nose is still a broken nose with or without a compassionate response.

Still, the task of compassion is first to recognize where hurt is coming from and then modify our responses in recognition that hurt beings lash out and act from their pain.

Compassion does not mean you need to allow yourself to become a physical or emotional punching bag or otherwise act as an unhealthy outlet for someone else’s pain… it means awareness and caring in response.

Compassion does not excuse an act of hurt either. As rational, smart beings, our actions are choices. We need to take responsibility for those chooses regardless of the circumstances that may have led to them.

What does compassion look like?

It can be a listening ear or a quiet presence in a hurt person’s life; It can be silence in the face of rage; sometimes compassion looks like not taking revenge on someone but finding alternatives. For that relative struggling with an addiction, it might mean an intervention or even commitment to care. Compassion comes in many forms.

Empathy is compassion’s twin sister. Empathy is possible when we can relate through experience or when one has the rare ability to comprehend, even without experience with another’s pain. Empathy can foster compassion and vice versa.

Responses to being hurt like compassion and empathy can prevent an escalating arms race of brokenness and pain.

It is important to note that compassion and empathy cannot heal or deal with the source of another’s pain, but they may create the space wherein someone become self-aware enough to start actively dealing with the source of their pain instead of relying on others to numb it.

Of course, in the midst of seeking to respond to someone else’s pain we also need to make sure we are not enabling it further. We need to make sure people understand our compassion and empathy are simply that and not something more.

We live in a broken, angry, divided world filled with every kind of pain imaginable and then some. We do not need more anger, hate and broken emotion. We need more agents of compassion and empathy.  

I

One should strive to act with compassion and empathy toward all creatures in accordance with reason.

II

The struggle for justice is an ongoing and necessary pursuit that should prevail over laws and institutions.

III

One’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone.

IV

The freedoms of others should be respected, including the freedom to offend. To willfully and unjustly encroach upon the freedoms of another is to forgo one’s own.

V

Beliefs should conform to one’s best scientific understanding of the world. One should take care never to distort scientific facts to fit one’s beliefs.

VI

People are fallible. If one makes a mistake, one should do one’s best to rectify it and resolve any harm that might have been caused.

VII

Every tenet is a guiding principle designed to inspire nobility in action and thought. The spirit of compassion, wisdom, and justice should always prevail over the written or spoken word.

We come

Screaming into this world

And they run to calm us down

So we scream when we’re hungry

And they feed us

So we scream when we’re sad

And they hold us

We scream when they go away

And they run back

We scream in the dark

And they come to turn on the light

They tell us it’s going to be alright

We scream scream scream

Until there’s no one left to listen

And then we scream into the void

it’s the quiet visitors
i appreciate the most
they come here silent
sneaking in to peek
as if i don’t know
like they just parked out back
or down the block
from the adult toy store
and want to stay hidden
don’t want to be seen

leering

so much of a life laid bare,
so much naked truth
poured out in one place
it’s enough to create an addiction

i’m tired.
i’m tired
and the world is on fire
though the rain has come
and quenched the worst
i want to sleep forever
but the work has just begun,
there’s ash to clear away
and lives to rebuild
there’s life to replant
and there’s the firestarter
who needs to be rooted out
before the town feels safe
before the world can sleep
again

there isn’t an artist worth their salt
who wasn’t batshit insane,
some just learn to hide it
some just learn to use it
enslave it to their purpose
but i’ll tell you what –
it unerves some people,
the ones who can see past
the skin you pull on in the morning
some people can smell pain
a mile away
and they run as if
from the stench of the dead,
but others?
fuck it’s like Chanel #5 to them
and they come running
like flies to manure
and that’s ok, go ahead –
spread us on your fields
and watch the thorny roses grow
because ours is the essence of creation

Shhh…

If you’re quiet

And press your ear

Against my head

You can hear the faint sound

Of something slowly escaping

Grinding out the mortar

From between the bricks

That wall them off

From polite society

And they will come

With the deeper sound of drums

And they will come

With a cacophony of thrums

Amphetamines to focus

Anxiety drugs to calm

What the hell happened

That I need a pharmacy

To function?

It’s like I was walking

Happy on my tightrope

Until I slipped and nearly fell

Gotta get back on

Toss the umbrella away

Toss the pole away

And if i fall…

I’ll try to fly instead

I can see in the dark

It’s the light I struggle with

The spectrum explosion

Overwhelms

But the shadows fall away

In the black and white

Of a sacred night