The Placebo Effect

How much healing
derives from the world outside,
and how much simply comes
from our willingness
to be whole again?

How often
does suffering remind us
that the pain we feel
is mostly a sundering
of ourselves
from ourselves?

It is a message
from our mortal self,
a call for kindness,
so that that within us
which never dies
can offer comfort
to that which does.