Stand near the light; don't walk towards the door
I'm myself, quite myself
Though quiet inside, I don't know.

Poets have often celebrated their pain
In verse with a swish of wine
My poetry has cleansed my mind often
Enabled me to feel rather fine

When I, in restless creativity
In the perpetual outsider's angst
Tried with music to soothe my troubled mind
When I submitted to sleep with thanks

How do I handle this feeling that comes upon me
At dawn, at dusk, at midnight,
I found the Woolfian and Plathian dilemna
Apt as only poetic pain can be, wrong or right.

Artists, musicians, flying euphoric
Far in their dreams and the world looking at them
As though they, and they alone could not understand
The compact structured world and its angles

While the pain got lost in all that trite rhetoric.

Handling the pain before it becomes a bonfire
That consumes your life and all those who loved you
Handle the pain, now that it cannot be borne
Give it wings, let it fly, let it break through.