Rumi
MY WORST HABIT
My worst habit is I get so tired of winter
I become a torture to those I’m with.
If you’re not here, nothing grows.
I lack clarity. My words
tangle and knot up.
How to cure bad water? Send it back to the river.
How to cure bad habits? Send me back to you.
When water gets caught in habitual whirlpools,
dig a way out through the bottom
to the ocean. There is a secret medicine
given only to those who hurt so hard
they can’t hope.
The hopers would feel slighted if they knew.
Look as long as you can at the friend you love,
no matter whether that friend is moving away from you
or coming back toward you.
(That is what happened to me. This poem makes me cry so hard I cannot tell you, but I am so glad.)
[...] I don’t know how to say this. I want very much to tell you this secret. It’s not a secret, but the secret is: whatever it is you’re most ashamed of, your deepest darkest shame, your worst flaw, your worst habit, the secret terrible thing about you that you’d rather die than see revealed, THAT thing, yes THAT, is going to save you. Look at it until your eyes bleed and you think your heart is going to combust, bring it out into the open, because the passageway is there. Dig a way out through the bottom to the ocean, Rumi says in my favorite poem. [...]