Suffocation

Here I stand, me against the world...
now who do you think will win?
For so long there's been nothing,
but I pretend it's not true,
and I wipe my eyes and bite my tongue in two.

And I can't go any further because
there's rain in my shoes again, cold and pressing in
like forbidden thoughts that slide
up my leg in the night.
I want them there and so do you.

If the world would stop spinning I could see.
Yes, I think I could know your face and mine,
and know why there's nothing for me
now and there never was.
I could know my sickness and embrace it.

I'm so tired of people, of life and of nature
and of all things good.
I don't want a future or a past;
I don't want to be understood
so don't try. Sure I could welcome you in,
breathe my icy breath on the back of your neck,
but you can't say I never warned you.

Time has stopped just for me...the next move is mine.
I fancy to stay here, I think, and empty my shoes again,
and wipe my eyes and dig my nails into my palm.

And when I am finally captured and drowning
in my own flood, I'll spit out the butt-ends
of all those dark things,
and maybe then you can look down into my very soul
and laugh in triumph.

Shadow

I am a shadow.
I creep across the floor.
I lie along the beach.
I double-cross the door,
Slipping out of reach.
So, running out of time, I
Climb the crystal ladder of
My mind. Up and up I go,
Flailing at the unseen foe
That flung the rungs of destiny
Out of reach. Although I'd
Like to show that foe a thing
Or two--
A shadow has not arms,
Like you.

Consummate Revelation

There are things unbeknownst to me,
things of wonderment and beauty,
my intoxication painful in its intensity
--I stand in awe of it all.

And if we were to ponder briefly,
the meaning of life and arbitrary things,
it would cripple us, and we would
mourn our ignorance.
For we have known all there is to know,
yet we yearn to know more before the Fall.

One morning as I lay dreaming,
a mountain sprite came down
from his lofty height,
twittering and twinkling like a
child's dreams, and took me by the hand
And up to the Summit--I was not afraid.

And from here I see all things--
the beginning, the end,
the unending miracle--
the mysteries of the universe are
given to me. I have seen creation
and destruction in the instance
of a heartbeat.
I am wonderfully made.

From my body I feel my thoughts
going out, pulled from me
by an unseen force.
My inner most secrets and fears
falling into the truth that
lies in front of me. The beauty
that hurts my eyes is spilling over the land;
I cannot see the end of it.
On my cheek is the breath
of those wings and my skin burns with a
white-hot brilliance. I ask myself,
"How am I alive?"

The sprite holds me now,
and we float down into
the valley of the very Beginning.
My mind is a swirl of unknowing
and all knowing, drunk with a
wisdom so large it must be broken
into small miracles to be accepted
by our limited universe.
Such authority you cannot contrive.

We marvel at tiny fragments,
achieving some small understanding
and heralding it as greatness.
Ah, but you have not been taken to the Summit.
How can you fully know?

I feel my body convulse,
shaking in the throws
of an undeniable ecstasy,
marking with my breath
the wonder I perceive...
feeling myself suddenly torn
from it all, weeping and thrashing
at this unseen assailant.
It is sad that I should have to go so soon.

My eyes flutter open into nothingness.
This world is grainy black and white,
but when I close my eyes
I can see that knowledge,
shimmering in the darkness
of my subconscious. A brilliant
beauty permeating the void,
filling the endless blackness
with a whisper of the Valley.

I am far too small to contain it all.

Sleepwalking

I woke up without waking, tumbling through a dream
--struggling for my name as I stare at my toast.

If I could find the words, would I speak them?
Would anyone want to hear?
If anything I could taste my toast
for once; I could feel it on my tongue
and be thankful for it. But I don't and I never have,
yet I keep plunging it in
because it's the thing to do.

In a sense I've been sleepwalking through this life,
missing out on all the
pain of reality, all of my own doing.
I've missed out on living,
but I don't regret it.
In my dreamworld I'm protected.
I dive off cliffs and walk away.

But on this morning I am to wake,
for the first time in my life,
and all of the mystery of this world
will be unraveled and presented to me.
The life I watched from the outside
is suddenly mine.
My unnamed benefactor has left me
to fend for myself.

In those moments before you come to be,
there is no great ceremony, no epiphany.
In effect I am as I have always been,
and this birth has not changed that.
I am that I'm not. I am without being.
And maybe that's as it should be.

So I am to taste the toast this morning...
lying on the plate it seems to speak.
"Take me as I am, I can't stay long.
I am your life. I am you.
Accept me."

And I do. And it is soft and sweet and alien.

Folie a Deux

Deep in the steaming belly of the precipice,
there liveth those that are dead.

From above they teem as one long suffering,
yet we two are one alone.
I walk among them, seeing them speak
but forgetting the words.
I kneel to bless them..."There there, you did this to yourself."
But who will bless me?

I see them call out
but I cannot hear above myself.
I once looked down into
the pit of Unforgiving and
screamed, "Open up and swallow me!"
--and it did and I am.

Now I sit on my feet and wait,
but for what I know not.
I cannot speed eternity.
Life is just beyond the ridge...
yet I know we will never get there.
The others do not.

From my place I see you in
every one of them.
Looking at you I see myself.
Nameless.
Faceless.
Together now, me and you.

Folie a deux.

--a madness for two.

A well-worn Shoe

It was something of great beauty
when you first whispered in my ear,
crooning "come with me"...
and I did and we became.
In a flash it was definite.

We twirled--I whirled--
through a marshmallow dream.
But you are something of a
dog-eared novel now,
familiar and much adored.

I fear I take you for granted my love.
And while there is no longer a
flash of heat, no white-hot and
blinding paradigm, please know
you thrill me even now.

The Glass Box

I sit here as they file by...
one by one reading the sign.
"Come one! Come all!
To view the woman-child!"

...She speaks beyond herself.

Come look at me sitting in my
glass box...walk past and stare.
I'm five years old but
they say I'm younger.

"You'll make more money that way,"
is what I'm told.

I do not talk but I'll speak to you,
about things you never knew...
and you'll walk away quite amazed.

You won't want your quarters back.

I'll speak to you as you speak to yourself.
You will be dazzled, I assure it, and say,
"What a smart little girl!"
And if I could talk to you, rather than speak,
you might take me home and make me cocoa
and tuck me in at night.

But there are oceans between us,
you see...and this glass box.

Don't leave! I'll tell you another story,
about how the Vikings discovered
America...just don't go.
You don't even have to pay again.
I'll speak to you if you'll stay.

But it's too late.
You have what you came for--
A peek at the woman-child
who speaks beyond her years.

-----

[I dance for dollars but I don't come cheap...
I'm a side show miracle...ain't it sweet?]

©Brandi Clark