I don't know if it's something structural;
A chemical imbalance, perhaps?
Or is there something she was meant to do?
If there was, it must be something pretty serious.
They tell me she was prominent,
Knew important people, traveled.
None of that seems to help her now.
The inside has eclipsed the outside,
And the inside seems to be misery.
She insists she's a good person,
And that it was hard.
If so, she must have had temptations;
Maybe she gave in to some.
One great temptation, for almost anyone
Is not to walk the road less traveled.
That's the narrow stoney one,
Fraught with potholes,
Winding around mountains,
And ending on a ledge
Overlooking all creation.
Hardly anyone gets there,
But what happens if they do?
Is that the place of the last, most fatal temptations?
Is that where people turn towads glory
And away from whatever is its alternative?
Some say the alternative is humiliation,
And humiliation might be the call to sacrifice everything:
All that you most love,
All you think makes you you.
Is that the road Abraham took
When God called him to sacrifice Isaac?
I don't think I'd answer that call.
I hope I would say to God,
Take me instead.
But I think many would say,
Take ANYONE but me.
That's the road that leads to darkness,
Since we all have to go anyway.
Maybe she was called,
Refused to answer,
And has been mourning ever since.
She calls on God a lot,
But as if from the bottom of a deep well.
There's something she wants to see, to feel,
Maybe the thing that junkies feel,
Maybe something much deeper.
Whatever it is, it's powerful.
She never sleeps long.
Sometimes she rests,
But usually she's calling out.
It seems nothing can give her peace.
Maybe it's the imminence of death,
Though I suspect death is still at a distance.
Maybe that will be the blessing to give her peace.
On the other hand, maybe she'll be one to fight death all the way,
Grasping life with her fingernails
Right to the end.
Maybe she's just a statistical victim
Of a fragile biochemistry,
But I suspect there was something she could have done long ago
That would have given her peace.
