Tuesday, February 28, 2017

Beckoning Royal Majestic


Since I left you

I ate a donut
the size of my head
Washed it down with
3 shots of espresso
Veered off the highway
to an unknown strip mall
Bought a new pair of shoes
I didn't need
Missed my next three exits
Almost drove off the road
trying to remove my jacket
like a fervent twister
Twitched incessantly in my seat
as sweat dripped
down my sides
until

surrender … finally … came

deep breathing
long audible sighs
tears spilling
from the outside corners of my eyes
rolling down the sides of my cheeks
as I passed the gas station in Decatur
where I once gave a lovely old woman
the flowers I had bought you


Let go
and find peace
you said
What the fuck does that mean
Telling me to let go
is like super gluing my hand
to a grand piano
while you proceed to sit down
and play
endless
meandering … dissonant ... jazz chords

I have found 
fleeting moments of peace
in my life
but they are located in the past
and there is no map
that I know of
that can help me find them
in the future
and you certainly arent going to
The problem is
when I am flying solo
I tend to get lost easily
but maybe that isn't really a problem
since knowing where I am going
has never brought me to any place
I have wanted to stay anyway

Sometimes
I worry
that I don't know the difference
Between calm and numb
because the one thing
they have in common
is the stillness
the quiet
its maddening
chaos has always been the heroin of my existence
and I am good at standing in the eye of the storm

However, my comfort with fear 
makes me no smarter than a monkey
If I would just let go of the goddamn banana
maybe I could pull my hand out of the bottle
Most days I feel like
a wild coyote
stuck in a trap
and it is all I can do
not to chew off my own foot
Because I have been taught
that being a cautious three legged dog
is better than being a car chasing
dead one
no matter how much freedom 
the death of this identity may bring

I have lost all my sense of direction
from insistently following
these thoughts clouded with fear
Instead of fearlessly diving into 
the beckoning, royal, majestic
called the unknown

Thunderheads billow on my left
Deep violet violence
with asymmetrical fractals of lightening

Sunset burning on my right
Florescence orange
beams through a foggy maze

Driving straight through
the flat plains of windmills
Headed toward an indigo sky

Random electric flashes
bring me back to the present
illuminate my way
revealing midnight cumulus tendril fingers
that stretch over head
Reaching for me
Wrapping around me
This front has no clear end
and I have forgotten where it began
all I know is that I don’t want to front anymore

In my altered state of mind
my fight or flight purple haze
I have completely lost track of time
But maybe that's ok
because I know that
At the end of every drug trip
is the dry up
At the end of every road trip
is the quiet
and maybe I will find peace
in the stillness
if I just keep driving
and allow this storm
to swallow me up