Let’s say you’ve broken through to surface
and your lungs are dry again—
though such pressure held you gripped in depth
now turning shows you free horizon everywhere.
What is your first new desire?
To write a memoir and appear on Oprah?
Problem is, you’re still on a raft on the ocean
(stuck in the metaphor of your own devising)
and you’re miles from safe shore.
Miracle: a laptop appears,
battery charged up, wireless connection
coming through from somewhere (it’s a mystery
but like found money you take it as a gift from God).
What do you type in the red-rimmed box?
Then you realize, you’re not on the ocean at all
but in the everyday clutter of your home
and your struggle has not been with salt water
but with the depths of your psyche
and though you feel “here” in the best sense
you could slip back, you could always slip back to
talking to Tyger (unseen) through a chain link fence
waving a magic wand at storm clouds to make sun
thinking God works in admissions AND is your sister—
and resenting everyone who doubts your fantasy.
It’s so much more AMIABLE to be fantasy free—right?
So you make up your mind: you will erase
all trace of all that nonsense from your past,
take the yellow pill, put your hard drive on the fire.
But you still hear Tyger roaring
in some recess of your mind—
got to throw the whole darn past away
push it out the back door, into the yard where the dog
will be thrilled to tear it to shreds—

let’s say the past is now utterly destroyed…
let's say calm prevails, the war is over
you look out on new-fallen snow:
who are you now?

turbokat

theicarusproject.net/forums/viewtopic.php