Some people actually are serene; 
self actualized, purely aligned.
They are legends of contentment,
sit daily with their pain well in hand, 
and are still.

I am glad for their existence.
Their stories give off such hope
and if they feel such hope themselves,
then truly, I am at peace with these stories
and what can they do for others.

I sit too, on and among bricks
rubbled up in bone-breaking piles,
blackened by a long fire that started
before I was born and continues
to flare from time to time, but I do not move.

Tell me where I am supposed to go,
I ask the ones at peace. They say I need
go nowhere, that peace is found within
or nowhere. This is nowhere, I respond.
Come sit with me where I live. They do not come.  

All life is suffering, they chide and chant
from a safe distance while the fire
I live with is licking at their walls. I could teach them
how to stand the coming days of sitting in rubble
while alternating screams and shrugs, 

but they won’t come over here and I can’t
get there, no matter how I try, no matter
how I try to rebuild this house to look like theirs
it burns again. So I sit here. All life is suffering.
Easy to say from over there, but I am here.