Forest

Open windows Closed doors Will I go Can I stay?

  Path July 26 2021 I stand in a long slow snake at the airport, Miles and miles until I sleep. My phone to my ear, I tell my mother “Life is a tree with burning roots and endless meaning. Everywhere I look I see a choice And find that I have lost my voice.” “I think life is a path,” she says. “One foot in front of the other.” In my forest the path winds through trees ablaze with white flame, pulsing spiderwebs strung from tree to tree like mycelium. One foot in front of the other. Then a cloud of stuffy cotton descends. Muffled sounds and hazy vision  I tear the fiber apart and crawl forward, One foot in front of the other. As the hour hand pulls me up, A sound ringing in the air, A candle in the snow, I hear myself laughing. I come back to a stream. In the clear water I see my face and know my name. I don’t ask my reflection for anything. I look up to a smiling face and outstretched arms That pull me Across the stream.

  I watch myself shift my eyes from side to side And feel words come to my lips Meaningful words Poetry And I look up to speak But hold them down Because last time they came They came and came and flooded Flooded until I choked as they came out, My eyes wide with fear, Clinging to a voice at the end of the phone In a screaming void of reality And then the words left with a sob Mired in a reality of embarrassment I shook my head to clear the fog But how could I speak when I had no thoughts? I tried to remember the sound of my own laugh, Waiting for the hour hand to lift me up. I look up to speak. Will you hold me down?