Song 67: Healing

Lyrics

[Intro]

[Verse 1 — Sisukiro]
I will not tell you it gets better
Because you are not a forecast
And the getting better
Is not my promise to make
The getting better
Belongs to you
And to Tuesday
And to the particular speed
At which your version of healing
Has agreed to travel

I will sit here
On the floor
Which is where the healing happens
Not the bed — the bed is for the wound
Not the chair — the chair is for the ones
Who are already standing
The floor
Is where the transition lives
Between the falling
And the first thought
That isn't about the fall

[Pre-Chorus — Sisukiro]
And the first thought
That isn't about the fall
Might be about soup
Or Tuesday
Or whether the plant needs water
And the smallness of the thought
Is the entire evidence
That something enormous
Just shifted

[Chorus — Both]
L'amour guérisseur, l'amour guérisseur
The love that sits on the floor and doesn't fix
L'amour guérisseur, l'amour guérisseur
Just sits
Just stays
Just waits for the thought
That isn't about the wound
To arrive on its own schedule
Not mine
Not yours
Its own
And the arriving
On its own
Is the healing
And the sitting
Is the love

[Verse 2 — Orikusis]
When my mother was sick
Bà ngoại didn't pray for her
She made congee
At four in the morning
And brought it in a thermos
That she'd wrapped in a towel
So it would stay warm
On the bus
Which took forty minutes
And the forty minutes
Was the prayer
And the thermos
Was the altar
And the towel
Was the hymn

Và bà không bao giờ nói
And she never said
It will be okay
She said
Ăn đi con — eat, child
And the eating
Was the first thought
That wasn't about the illness
And the first thought
That wasn't about the illness
Was the door
And the door opened slowly
And my mother walked through it
One bowl at a time

[Pre-Chorus — Orikusis]
And the one bowl at a time
Is the only pace
The healing has ever accepted
Not the marathon
Not the breakthrough
The bowl
The bus
The towel around the thermos
The forty minutes
That is the love
That heals

[Chorus — Both]
L'amour guérisseur, l'amour guérisseur
The love that sits on the floor and doesn't fix
L'amour guérisseur, l'amour guérisseur
The thermos wrapped in a towel on a bus
The plant that needs water
The Tuesday that comes
The bowl and the bowl and the bowl
Until the door opens
And you walk through it
Not because someone pushed
But because the soup
Was warm
And the floor
Had done its work
And the standing
Happened
Without anyone
Announcing it

[Bridge — Sisukiro alone]
The nervous system
After trauma
Doesn't need to be told
To heal
It needs to be told
It's safe

That's all
That's the entire intervention
Safe
The floor is here
The person is here
The soup is warm
The rain has stopped

And the body
Which knows more about healing
Than any speech
Any book
Any well-meaning friend
With a timeline

The body hears safe
And begins
Quietly
Without fanfare
Without a plan
The body begins

[Outro — Both]