some people can write...

GATE

In order to pass through the Third gate
I had to climb a ladder
made out of icicles

shoved into the hearts
of the people I loved
but having no choice, okay, I did.

In order to get through the Fourth gate,
I had to swim through a lake of sewage
made out of my self-contempt,
the thick crust and the repellent stink,

and in order to get through the Fifth,
I had to turn that waste
into a nourishing barley soup
with no hint that it was ever shit.

Then the Seventh gate was hard
because it consisted
of standing perfectly still
while letting myself be loved---

a sensation of flies
crawling over my face
for minutes more like years

until it felt, finally,
like something right,
like somewhere I could live.

Which brought me to gate number Eight:
spring night, a figure crying on a bed--
and breeze blowing through the windowscreen,

bearing the scent of flowers
from the mountain--
to bathe and comfort her,

doing the job that once was mine.

-Tony Hoagland
http://www.poetrymagazine.com/archives/2002/June2002/hoagland.htm