“Let everything happen to you. Beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final.”

~~~ Rainer Maria Rilke

The middle of the night
he returns
to leave you again
as he did long ago.

Let it happen
let it happen again.
Rilke is right

you know

against reason.

But first you fight
fate, karma
bad luck
all the
invisible
opponents

you turn your face into the pillow
from blows
the subconscious lands

at last,
like a boxer on the bloody floor,
you resort
to prayer
whispered
into the pillow.

sleep returns only
upon surrender
as illusions depart,
and childhood longings,
do the same.

It is morning.