"If want to die so bad
Just go ahead and do it.
It's ok. It's ok. It's ok."
She whispered that in my ear.
"It's all you ever ask for
Anymore. Just let go.
It's why you're here.
You can just let go, you know?
You needn't t hold on like you do.
All the words and thoughts
Can drift away. They are not you.
Nor is this flesh, this bone,
This pain you long for so much
To be gone.
It all can die
And you can die with it.
It's ok. Just
Go ahead." So, I did.
Sobbing, retching, searching for
a path through the fear
to the death I wanted,
I felt the poison
That I let in, become
That thing it sought,
Become the tiny
Atomy of an ego,
To hone in on that part
Of me that so wanted
To die and
Be gone.
I had to let it
Become me to kill me,
To know it's prey
And smell it's fear
Like the panther moves
In total darkness
Toward her kill.
I was the hunter
And the hunted,
The poor little lamb,
The trepid sacrifice.
Now, quietly weeping,
Pain and fear still the framework
Of the person there
Writhing, I died.
I felt the last breath
I had leave out of me,
The synapsis no longer.
Nothing but silence was
All I knew and could feel,
All that I was.
That last heartbeat,
The softest of thuds,
Boomed elegantly within
The chambers of my
Deepest understanding.
Like a drum beat, a signal
Issuing forth some
Rumbling softer still.
But, I could hear it,
Still not breathing, but
I could hear, I could feel
That rumble within some
Place I'd only visited
Accidentally on purpose,
Without a fraction of this
Understanding afforded me
In this moment.
Then there it was,
The gasp, the rush
Of air through tubes
And tissue, flesh and fluid.
It was the air
A baby breathes on
The first day of life,
The epinephrinal
Jolt of a body not yet
Ready for the grave.
In this flash, and
From the depths of
My very soul,
Came this fiery phoenix
Of flame like faces
Undulating with
The rhythm of this
New and growing beat.
This infant drum beat
In my heart bore witness
To the birth of my
Own avifauna
That rose from the ashes
Of the man that died
In that spot where
I lay, no longer
Writhing, but with wings
A blaze, full of the
Faces of every Me
And every ancestor
Of me that ever was
Or ever was to be.
Proud and pristine,
With flaming plumes, lapping
At this expanseless
Void of time and space.
"Was it everything you
Thought it would be?" She
Whispered again softly,
As the milieu of
My own shadows made
Pedestal and mise en scene
For the ego death
And the fiery Phoenix.
©JWJ2022
YOU ARE READING
The Perpetual Array
PoesíaIt's just some poems I wrote to help me make sense out of what, at times, feels senseless. They don't all rhyme but there was a reason for every one of them. I hope at least someone can make some sense out of this humble collection, which will und...
