Pendulum

The pendulum swings

From pearl to gastrolith

I feel it’s weight with each shifting

In this damned uncomfortable chair

When it’s a pearl

It’s a story

A captivating tale that sets me apart

Sets me on the path of being

Actualization

When it’s a gastrolith

It’s still a story

A forgettable pablum not worth noting 

Securing my place of anonymity 

Forgotten 

The weight, either way, is there

It’s gravity a nagging reminder 

Often paralyzing 

There are times, though

When the bits of wire and rusted nails

Break free from the ingested magnet

Where all the world’s pain collects

These bits of detritus regurgitated 

Coming out through a torn throat

In bloody, mucosal, pyroclastic eruptions

There are times, though

The body feels warmth from the insoluble 

It gently encases it in layers of nacre

Making its expulsion more tolerable 

The vomitus a pictada fucata 

Throat stretching to accommodate 

The goose that lays a mother of pearl egg

In either case, the process is necessary 

Whether avoiding a stomach so full

I beach myself on distant, unknown shores

Having broken the elemental barrier 

Born again, but into desiccation 

Or the calcium that makes up the nacre

Is cancerous in high concentrations 

The body evicting a deadly tenant

A baby gestating too long

In either case, the process is creation

In minima

Like a young child staring in awe

The first time they make

Crying when the toilet’s flushed 

Or the first piece of art 

That makes the side of the fridge

There is value in the letting go

Not the reckless abandon of encopresis 

But the satiation of a need

The building of an edifice of confidence 

But just like the microdosing of dopamine 

It’s a bandaid for a puncture wound

True healing

A resurrection, not just a seance

A real fucking dose, not just a bump

I have to stop hiding

I have to  take the leap

But I daydream about skydiving 

And am afraid to fall

In the end, the true fear is failure

That if I cut myself open

If I dig this weight I carry out of my guts

If it’s DOA

Then I am empty, a shell, a testa

And where do I go from there?

I only have one recurring dream

And one ever-present nightmare

Letting go- Erich Michaels

This is my latest piece at the wonderful Sudden Denouement.

Sudden Denouement Collective

You’d think as the seasons march on
Rotting soldiers casting off bits of themselves
Their cadence seeming to ever quicken
Having lived a month and a half of April fools days
No wiser and falling for the same old tricks
That I’d bury my head in like a tick
Swallowing watermelon seeds hoping to root myself to the ground
Looking for ways to have my name chiseled in stone
Engraved in plaques or even a cornerstone time capsule
But there must be a limit, as there is for everything
In mourning tears and afternoon funerals
I’ve said goodbye so many times I bought a plane ticket to Hawaii
So I can pretend I’m really saying hello, for a change
My worst fear, having seen how it ravages the mind
Now sounds like a lullaby meant to usher you off
Your golden years never losing luster
Some days you forget you…

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