Prayer for a Bad Day

You train yourself for courage,
that mountain of performance
at the core of searching
that makes you feel like a guest,
and not a resident,
where ever you go,

searching for a place to call home
when there is nothing but double the pain
when you fall helplessly
engaged in so many losses
no matter the color of the walls
or the hope of a single white curtain
in the breeze  near the open glass.

And now I offend you,
a slap in the face
by omission of another simple word,

not out of malice, but rather,
out of all the deaths I have suffered
without learning how to right the wrongs of the lines on your face,
how to ask for forgiveness of sorrows caused by not turning the corner,
how to slip out of the sweater of night where you wait for me
into the cool shining of the sea of your kindness
and learn to swim strong next to your full strokes
without fear
of the undertow
that will eventually
pull us all under.