A Long Poem

I wrote this last year. It's a lot of free-association and stream-of-consciousness writing, based largely on imagery from my dreams and shamanic trances.

Recurrence

Dreams of rows and rows of books.

Old friend.

I climb the mountain every night but never reach the top.

Absorb the memories all around me.

Never gone, never at rest.

Fluid thoughts spin into maelstrom, dragging down in whorls of anxiety.

Maintain focus.

Focus.

Focus…

Gordian knot inside me. What blade is there will slice it?

A mountain descends beneath me, the valley covered with haze.

I've been here many many times, different yet always the same.

I hear a mourning train below; its wails drift up a steady dirge.

I hold a cistern of worries, no room for ecstasy.

It seems no matter where i go; i find i'm always here.

Reality is tenuous here.

I shift back and forth but never truly break free.

Time and space are fluid, like a pearl of mercury.

I jump off of the precipice. I know i won't fall long.

I find myself somewhere else.

Still i fall inside.

Always falling.

Falling.

Falling…

Surrounded by stories and flights of stairs

That go on to nothing forever.

Designed by a madman with no regard for physics,

I follow them up and find myself down.

I follow them down and find myself up.

I know that others are lost here too.

I hear them from time to time.

How they got here i don't know.

I thought this world was solely mine.

Are they truly here at all? Was this place made for me?

Freedom beckons when morning comes.

But now is not yet time.

A subconscious addiction that i dwell here every night.

A world that seems so spacious yet a prison nonetheless.

People flicker in and out

like light through the leaves of a tree.

Flickering too my hatred and rage;

Blaming those who deserve it or not.

I want them all to go away. I want the solitude.

But still feel lost when all alone.

Isolation takes over my mind and my soul.

Bits of me are taken,

piece by tiny piece.

Some i let go willingly;

Most are torn away.

Advantage never mine.

Always forcing.

Forcing.

Forcing...

My way to where i don't belong.

I learn that soon enough.

Forests thick with choked out light

have no boundaries that i can find.

Always in some kind of trap,

a labyrinth

i can't unwind.

No one seems to know it yet,

but i do not belong here.

Alien though i am, this place was made for me.

This place was made by me.

Camping parks and shanty towns;

I saw her naked once.

This dilapidated building, full of

dirt and bugs;

I know it belongs to me.

I know this house.

Amalgam.

Sometimes pristine.

Sometimes almost nothing left but

dust and insects.

Empty lots, abandoned for eons,

full the echoes of whispers of people long gone.

Temptation and a trap,

this emptiness.

Swirl around my head the memories of these people.

Some memories my own,

others borrowed.

This road is short to nowhere,

from the edge of populous into forever.

One side leads only to the other.

Restless and listless,

i no longer want to move anywhere or anytime.

I've been here too long already.

Wooden boards beneath my feet, sinking slowly into the ground.

They weren't properly secured.

Scrub around a lack of morals, warped from the very beginning.

I belong here less than i did yesterday and

more than i will tomorrow.

This house it haunts me every night.

Always different,

shifting,

transmorphing,

but i recognize it nonetheless.

The stairs appear with semi-regularity,

a secret room behind them.

Never very welcome, but always present when i'm able.

Pristine walls and clinical sterility

turn my nerves on end,

tweak them.

I want to leave.

I want to scream a roar

to shake the foundations of this cursed place.

I'm wound like a coil that's about to snap.

Country home design here is more than i can bear.

I want out but the stairs and doors

shift and disappear.

Make solid the immaterial,

the secret bring forth to the light.

Control the fluid aspects of reality here.

It is difficult.

God please let me out.

Set me free.

Make this stop.

Let me be.

Movement is restricted.

Lust seeps through my mind and soul.

Occasional control.

Occasional control.

Only one haven here, water and sand so small and stretching to infinity.

No boundaries left,

open,

exposed,

but finally safe.

Sunless warmth envelops me, comforting finally.

Safety and regression.

Ships sail on the horizon.

Sails of white glimmer then disappear.

I think it's the edge of the universe,

this safe and cozy place.

I think it's the edge of nowhere.

Beyond the reach of time and space.

Fly, i can fly,

but i'm drawn towards the shore.

This place is the calmest

but i can't stay here any more.

Drilling rigs and buoys dot the seascape

breaking up the space.

Light is low but bright

from no discernible source.

The ground is dry,

cracked like a crocodile skin.

Beyond the edge of nowhere.

Becoming less tangible now.

Interrupt.

   Interrupt.

Stop...

Stop...

Come to a

Stop.