Trouble is not my middle name

Poem

Trouble is not my middle name.

It is not what I am.

I was not born for this.

Trouble is not a place

though I am in it deeper than the deepest wood

and I’d get out of it (who wouldn’t?) if I could.

Hope is what I do not have in hell –

not without good help, now. Could you

listen, listen hard and well

to what I cannot say except by what I do?

And when you say I do it for badness

this much is true:

I do it for badness done to me before

any badness that I do to you.

Hard to unfankle this.

But you can help me. Loosen

all these knots and really listen.

I cannot plainly tell you this, but, if you care,

then — beyond all harm and hurt –

real hope is there.