You call me on a Saturday night and you are crying
You ask me to stay with you because you are alone.
I am a thousand miles away and I want so bad to hold you
To ease the hurt and soothe the pain that comes
From being alive and wanting to be whole.

Somewhere in the middle of this excruciating miracle
Literally between sobs and sighs,
We wonder about the strange marriage
Of pain and healing. Suffer, die, rise--
So it goes, and you learn to keep your eyes
On the rise. It's a tough lesson,
And little consolation.

Yet there is something irreplaceable here--
Something in the act
Of pressing my fingers, so gently,
To your wounds, then making them my own.
This pain, it becomes precious to me
Because it is yours. And now I now
That compassion is as strange a thing
As healing.