Gratitude Makes the World Go Around

Dear Brother in the Uprising against Shmegeggedom

Thank you for the times in Café Voltaire (I feel privileged to be able to steal a weekly spot in your schedule)
Thank you for being a clown sometimes and making me laugh from the saddest zones of my soul
Thank you for letting me read your heart breaking new book
Thank you for faithfully encouraging me to express myself
Thank you for beholding Me
Thank you for all the random pieces of snail mail over the months
Thank you for sharing your poetic inspirations with me
Thank you for introducing me to your teachers
Thank you for introducing me to Palestine and letting me stew and sob without trying to fix me
Thank you for appreciating my forays into watercolors

Thank you for helping me to soften
Thank you for helping me to toughen up
Thank you for telling me about your family and letting your inner Yid shine
Thank you for revealing your manic messiness
Thank you for letting me behold You
Thank you for gently pushing my buttons
Thank you for inviting me to events you knew I would never attend
Thank you for visiting me in my chaos-strewn apartment in a shabby neighborhood
Thank you for being an inspiration, a soul’s shit disturber, and a compass for the past year
Thank you for being
Thank you for interbeing

Bella Levenshtein


--from novel-in-progress, Our Heroic and Ceaseless 24/7 Struggle against Tsuris