The Prince and the Pea
It’s clear now I’ll have to carry this thing
to my grave no matter how much it drags me down
How could something so small be so heavy?
I cant put it on a shelf or ask you to hold it
It has infiltrated too deep,
caged in my chest
a stone in my shoe
a stone in my shoe
embedded in bone.
I just know I can't let it go.
Can’t chuck it over a cliff
without the rest of me following.
It’s a dead weight in the center of my being,
the crucial concentrated ballast,
I’m reluctant to admit,
tethering me to this poor gray world
I feel it boring into me wherever I lie
no matter how many mattresses
I stack behind my back.
What would I do if I didn't feel it anymore?
How much distance would it take?
If I get too close
I melt right into it
and then nothing else matters
which can be tempting
but who would ever notice?
I want to take it out and look at it
cradle it, spend quality time with it
leave just a shell behind that smiles
and says thank you very much
says good morning says have a nice day
shows up for work grins and bears it
tucks it away when the wind starts to gust
When I die it will be
all that remains of me
like the charred keys and rings
and gold fillings amongst the ash
after a house burns down
after any small genocide
I’ll be gone before
I realize it holds
everything worth counting
that I was merely the empty
space in which it chose to exist
When you find yourself in
a situation like this
one of two things happens:
It either expands into an entire universe
more joyously real than anything you thought you deserved
or, thwarted, it collapses unused
into an infinite density
that the afflicted must carry
that the afflicted must carry
one foot in front of the other
step after agonizing step
1 comment:
Just returning after a total knee replacement with complications. You haven't lost your touch. Your poetry is one of my all-time favorite escapes!
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