another day, with grace

I guess that's it...
when the rib cracks
the lungs and heart aren't too far behind
and the view doesn't need to be the hardest or the night the darkest
to spin an entire world around
and tears fill the eyes
it's in breaking and breaking down
we find the wings to create beautiful things
and the greatest understand
that the worst rooms in town are the source
of all the best and most destructive pictures and words crafted by man
by pen and by hand
and it all builds
day on day
to one of those sparkling
magnetic evenings when
in waves the starlight fills
through eyes
arms
fingers
to paper
to new eyes
lungs
and hearts

the great unwashed

the people who go all the way crazy
who kick and scream and kill and maim
the terrible few who fall so far
from basic levels of decency
that they lose even the core of humanity
and exit society
are probably not so unlike you and me
but a little more scratched
a little more dogworn
and beaten

they eat and sleep and work and pray
like you or me
they probably even had dreams
once

but the knocks kept them down
the sheer weight of it all
a cross to bear
that somehow shifted a potentially great
and important member of this western democracy
into a sadistically wrong
and tragically destructive note in history

a smile or two
or a kind word to a stranger
every now and then
might make that little bit of difference
to the otherwise bleak and terrifying life
of a potentially great
and important member of this western democracy
so close to the edge
you will never know

or maybe it's far
too late for all that
now