Seismograph
You need a cup of coffee? The house is burning down
Seismograph, off the record
Harm and kindness in equal measure
Who I am to judge the endeavor
Beakers, flasks, process the pleasure
Cook the books, scratch the ledger
Pore over intake forms like McCarthy penned it
Pour-over coffee breath, poor boy, pathologized
Before he ever turned his eyes
Before he ever left the hospital
Before I found my voice
I had to internalize it
Short and quiet, relay to others
What I heard in the silence
Couldn’t excuse him cause I loved him
Had to let him know where love came from
My custody, my catharsis
At least love persists.