I know one day you'll be all right
I know you'll find your peace
Your dark shadow and your head hung low
Will find their light
And never sulk again.
No one told you it would be easy
And if they did, you'd never buy it
Because it's too easy to lie
When truth is not constant.
Your strength lies in your compassion
Not in your power
Because a heart must be made of stone
If it can be broken.
You ask them how to live
But they don't know any better than you do.
They don't have any special techniques
No cure-alls
For the ills that you feel sometimes will never end.
Life goes on
No matter how much any of us
Wish it would go quietly
Into that good night
For the darkness is a place of comfort and recuperation
But it is no way to live.
You know this.
Not just in your mind
Which can change in a minute
As easily as you change a pair of pants.
Not just in your heart
The one you're reluctant to let rest easy
When there's so much it could carry
Extra baggage
When the load seems too light.
But you know this
In your actions
In the way you live every day
Where it counts.

--Peter Johnson, 1997