It is not the earth you hear 
not the oceans swilling in plastic not thick air stifling it is not the poor nor the taxed  it is not the sick or hungry not the injured no not not the war -- none of these things are calling now

someone is calling saying
I'm here I am here now I need help I'm doing everything I can I can't do anymore why don't you come why don't you help

who says please don't come angry don't come angry with me anger is not what I need blame does not help scolding does not help I do not need disapproval I do not need correction I do not need fixing I do not need protection from myself

who warns if you come with blame I will scream I will scream louder I will force you away with my unbearable volume GO AWAY with your blame and disapproval GO AWAY with blame and disapproval disguised in friendship offering slick bribes anger is not helping blame is not helping

who insists don't offer me cures cure is not what I need not calming not comforts if you come with your "settle downs" and "it’s all rights" if you offer me drinks or pills if you force me to take them or even if I take them out of exhaustion or despair and slip into the quiet you think is good for me IT IS NOT the help I need and I will wake again shivering with pain and emptiness and I will call again with screams you cannot BEAR

who is so desperate to say  
please come please come to me come yourself forgetting as long as you can your decisions to ignore your own grief and your own fear  and your own anger

Who begs forget your need to keep quiet your addiction to quiet and the sleep it brings be with me  us together stay together in the arms of our deepest feelings our longest known disappointments our frights and terrors  not looking away or fighting or mocking but being  warm gentle  fellows who recognise our own deepest wounds in the other

who is saying so clearly this is what I want from you this is what I need?

who is agreeing this
this is what we need? 

poem: Jo Mariner / Image: Paul Gauguin Love, and You Will Be Happy (Soyez amoureuses, vous serez heureuses), from the Suite of Late Wood-Block Prints (1899) by Paul Gauguin. 
Original from The Art Institute of Chicago. Digitally enhanced by rawpixel. Rawpixel Ltd, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons