MD Friedman		Know Where to Go Crazy   He is going nowhere, deliberately.  – Elizabeth Robinson   I’ve been here before, where the rain cuts like shard glass and drives me deep into the mouth of fog,   frozen, frosted with flakes of salt. This is nowhere to go crazy. When I move again, I return to somewhere,   anywhere there is something.  But never again. I’m done with that circle of tears where my dark fears fall in on me.   It’s over, there’s no way out. There is nothing left to say except it’s time to leave. There’s nowhere to go, so I’m off.   It might as well be a picnic, with this frayed tablecloth I keep in my back pocket to blow my nose.   I don’t take much.  A bleeding wafer of heart between two loaves of breath is all I bring.   I enter a ghosted meadow. My soul in this blue bottle stirs the rock to breathe. I only want to get away, to climb for myself that high green hill where everyone must go alone.   Sure, I’ll miss the warmth of the crowd, the clap of strangers bumping into me, but the broken music takes me, ears stuffed to the brain.   There’s no reason to stay.  My screams won’t be heard. Just more of the sane.  I leave what is left for someone else to write.   No desire for the fire of a burning world. My own breath fogs my glasses. In a dark way, I am filled with light.   I’m ready.  I’ve had no sleep for weeks. My eyes open from looking inward. I have sharpened my teeth.   Inside, the whole world changes.  I go the way with no way back.  I awake ever closer to sleep. The edge of my dream cracks with beauty.   I wish I could take you.  You would like it.  Here in the middle of nowhere, there is so much to share. The silence is shattering.  It is a miracle just to be alive.		Do Not Run From Your Poet Self ~ for Billy Collins   do not fear your poet self when you discover him under your life boat hiding do not punish him like a pathetic stow away   what he has to say will not throw you overboard he is you as much as you are he   no matter what he says it will not hurt for long just a pinch   like a doctor giving a shot his words will heal you in the end   he will not preserve your pain only hold it up shining to the night like a broken sextant   after a while you will be left at peace and adrift in a small boat all your own   with a golden sail full of dreams you will have clean water and food for your mind and a map if you are ever lost again   never call it mutiny or torture the words that swirl in his wake as he slips beneath the waves hoarse from screaming   for it was he who sang you back to life when you bobbed and wretched across the lonely sea and you will need his help again