Therapy

Can you give therapy to a tomato plant —
That grows wild
Shooting branches every which way
Climbing, winding into every crevice
Oblivious to whatever is nearby

Is pruning its therapy —
Like training a dog
A small child
Or one who cannot speak

Behavioural therapy — that’s what they call it
Prune it
Positive reinforcement
Or negative —
Cut, guide, restrain

Like therapy for hair —
Beard, moustache, nails
You trim yourself
Or pay someone else to do it
A lawnmower — giving therapy
To unruly grass

Massage therapists, beauty therapists
Nail salons, vacuum therapy
Hunger, thirst, sex, boredom
Music therapy, art —
Food, clippers, drinks, vacuums
Hands, bodies, eyes, ears

Feeling a need, an urge, an impulse —
Desire or thought
And finding a way to fulfil it
An itch —
And the reach to scratch

Isn’t that, in the end
What therapy is

And then —
Talking therapy
Counselling, coaching
Motivational, cognitive
Analytical, group, hypnotherapy
Chats, talks, dialogues, Q&As

An urge, an impulse, an itch —
And some way to scratch it

And then —
Withholding therapy
Deprivation
Fasting, the so-called meditation
Exercise, work-outs
Labour, prohibitions
Road signs, road works
Police, prisons, pain

When there’s an impulse, urge
Desire — a need —
To eat, speak, rest, do, turn
Go —
But you can’t
You’re not allowed to

Until —
You are chained, gagged, blindfolded
Thrown into a solitary cell
And any itch you feel —
You cannot scratch

Therapy — or its absence —
No therapy
For some therapeutic purpose
Rehabilitation, remediation, sanction

Breaking-the-person-down therapy
Repentance, penance
Torture — called therapy

So what is therapy, then
Who gives — and who gets
With scissors, I can give it to a tomato plant
With a gun — to a person
With a bomb — to a country

With my hand, I can scratch my own itch
Without hands —
I need someone
Something else

Itch — scratch
Pain — relief
Impulse — movement
Perception — thought
Silence — sound

Between each and every
Linguistic counterpart —
Right and wrong
Up and down
Yes and no —
There exists a therapist

Between the impulse and its cessation
There’s therapy
A tool, a modality

A hand, drug, sound,
Food, spade, guards, guns
Movement
Words

Air
Water
Shelter
Fire

Is therapy, then, another name
For living —

For the -ing

And death —
A name for the absence
Of -ing

And if so —
No one already living
Needs therapy
For it is already happening

And everyone who’s already living
May want, may have
Whatever therapy they wish
And can receive

But it would never change
A single thing
About their being —
And living —

Only
Their life