In Case You Ever Need It, It is Here (poem)

"Take this as yours
Rip this from the book
of make a copy
fold it in half
and half again
and put it in your wallet
or between the mattress and the box spring
or taped under your desk
so it is there
if.

Know this: what happened
to your body
to your head
to your heart
is not your fault.
It is not something you caused
or deserved.

It is like blaming yourself
for someone hitting your hand
with a hammer.
(If that person is you,
put the hammer down.
Let it be an accident.
Let it be the end.)

The body, heart, brain knows
how to heal. It knows how to knit
back together. How to suture
and secure. Let it do what it does.
Your body is yours.Your body
will always be yours.

You are not what happened.
Your whole life
is not just this. You do not speak
a language made of this, this is
not your name. 

Your name is your own.

Let your name be
The name of someone who
can do the unthinkable:
Stands up and keeps moving.
You are standing. You are taking
a shower and eating breakfast.
You are going to classes
or going to work. You are doing
impossibly hard things. Keep going
and keep going and there
is summer. Laugh even if it is
with rage. Open your mouth
and your fists. Tell the truth.
Tell a friend. Listen to someone
else's heart. it is beating
a miracle. You are
Both here.

When scars are new,
They shine. Be all the glitter
You need."

--Daphne Gottlieb--

well, this found me tonight...quite accurately

From an Atlas of the Difficult World

"I know you are reading this poem
late, before leaving your office
of the one intense yellow lamp-spot and the darkening window
in the lassitude of a building faded to quiet
long after rush-hour. I know you are reading this poem
standing up in a bookstore far from the ocean
on a grey day of early spring, faint flakes driven
across the plains' enormous spaces around you.
I know you are reading this poem
in a room where too much has happened for you to bear
where the bedclothes lie in stagnant coils on the bed
and the open valise speaks of flight
but you cannot leave yet. I know you are reading this poem
as the underground train loses momentum and before running
up the stairs
toward a new kind of love
your life has never allowed.
I know you are reading this poem by the light
of the television screen where soundless images jerk and slide
while you wait for the newscast from the intifada.
I know you are reading this poem in a waiting-room
of eyes met and unmeeting, of identity with strangers.
I know you are reading this poem by fluorescent light
in the boredom and fatigue of the young who are counted out,
count themselves out, at too early an age. I know
you are reading this poem through your failing sight, the thick
lens enlarging these letters beyond all meaning yet you read on
because even the alphabet is precious.
I know you are reading this poem as you pace beside the stove
warming milk, a crying child on your shoulder, a book in your
hand
because life is short and you too are thirsty.
I know you are reading this poem which is not in your language
guessing at some words while others keep you reading
and I want to know which words they are.
I know you are reading this poem listening for something, torn
between bitterness and hope
turning back once again to the task you cannot refuse.
I know you are reading this poem because there is nothing else
left to read
there where you have landed, stripped as you are."

-Adrienne Rich