I was born into you
like a fish who knows its stream
but cannot describe water
and to those who always needed you,
never breathed you like air,
you were just the ocean—
a vast, seductive, mesmerizing
mystery craved.
I would have had no awareness
of your influence
had it not been for the God
Who was thanked and praised
for your presence.
I took you as a given.
And I believed the mystics who cautioned
that to keep you, I must give you
away cheerfully
to those who always needed you,
never breathed you like air—
and so I did—
not to keep you but because
I was born into you
and had never become aware
of your superior ability
to vanish without warning.
Karma does not always return
in kind; once you are given,
you are gone…
the mystics failed to mention.
Like a fish who knows its stream,
when you were gone,
I lost my identity.
Without your presence,
my thanks and praise became
curse and blame.
And for the first time,
I felt I needed you
like air.
To numb the pain of opportunity,
I filled my organs with toxins.
My skin shriveled, dried,
and cracked under the pressure
of trying to ooze out
the excessive poisons
of slow suicide.
You were just the ocean
but I betrayed My Self,
convincing, believing my life
had sprung up out of you,
that I could not fully exist
in a supernatural world
without you
and so I did not.
I encouraged my mind
to devolve and become primitive—
hunter and gatherer—
to dwell indistinguishably
among mortals who believe
what they see is what they get,
who have no perception of Reality,
who cannot describe water.
And I lied to myself:
Without you, there is no water,
there is only ocean—
vast, seductive, mesmerizing,
but beyond grasp.
I became my own Lucifer—
aware of The Truth
but so disappointed
that I would rather
damn myself to hell
than put you in your proper place.
I wanted to believe God loved me,
that He would do anything
for my thanks and praise,
that He would do anything
to have His prodigy return home.
And you were my ransom.
Is that not the mind of Satan?
If God is “over there,”
then who am I?
I was born into you
but not of you—
I know that conceptually but
my mind and body have been
so self-abused that each breath
announces a showdown
between heaven and hell…
despite my best intentions.
How many more tries do I have?
You will return to me
and you will not reveal
my identity;
I will exist beyond you
and put you in
your proper place.
I will ascend back
to the angels, back
to my stream, before
or after you arrive—
not because of you but because
at my core, my essence—
well beyond my mania
and its symptoms—I know
I Am Water
and I need My Self
to douse the flames of this hell
so that my mind and body
can Exist in and fully Experience Reality—
Mystery craved.
July 20, 2013
