Inner
Maybe I like being haunted sometimes
Peace isn’t always the most capturing story to tell
There’s something about spilling your demons
Pouring them on paper, further away from you
Where they can’t touch you
Sharing them with others
Thinking they might play well together
I feel it creeping up, staring at me out of the corner of my eye
I smile but feel the weight of the muscles I pull on in an attempt to push the mist away
It remains
Just yesterday a friend said I was glowing and I wonder: will I still glow in the dark?
You laughed the stars
Into the sky
How lucky am I
To witness the constellation before me
Your eyes as the sea
The sun like your skin
And even warmer within
Heart of gold, nothing cold
Save the absence of you
A world in which that would not do
Time is a continuum
But death stops it in its tracks
If just for a moment
The continents still
Traffic quiets, rivers halt
If just for a moment
Words are silenced
Breaths are bleak
If just for a moment
As if a cardiac hiccup attempts
To keep us close to our loved one
If just for one last moment
Wired clamps and a gown
Five hours of blood tests drawn
Beeping ekgs and medical noises
Referred to an expert
My valves and arteries
Are anatomically examined
I walk then jog then huff and puff
On a treadmill to get blood going
And for seven days, the behavior
Of my red and suspicious organ
Is examined and recorded
I see a white coat once more
I wonder what’s occurring within
Beneath the surface of my skin
He tells me what I’ve waited for
It’s all in my head; a civil war
My brain is deceivingly to blame
And my heart is healthfully innocent
Woke me up with a start
Fifteen after six on a Sunday
On an early morning in May
My breath matched the beat
I lied flat on my sheets
Just breathed. Wait. You’re okay.
The intake of air calmly slowed
My lungs and my mind
Attempted to calm the racing rate
But to no avail; I rose up
Twenty-seventh year of life
Unsteadiness began to run rife
cracks across the sky. Bright veins of light branch out and crawl along the horizon. The world is quiet save for the leaves popping against flat surfaces, blown about by modestly growing gusts. Illumination highlights the silhouettes of the brave and curious souls out wandering, pondering. Observing nature’s electricity. Go inside, they said. You’ll be safer, they said. Oh, but safety doesn’t always equal beauty.
