Out of the nest

All allure when first I met you,
Immense and grave you drew me in
My mother ship
My frontier adventure
My sole companion in the art of the new,
And like baby to breast I took hard to you.

But later you soured, you dried up
You cast me off to practice
Being small.
You were dying and I didn’t know it
But now I do and I thank you
For sending me away so as not to die with you.

I am a stranger in this new land
With nothing to worship
And nothing to guide me
And nothing to enjoy
But my freedom.

Goodbye Imaginary Friend

You were my companion in the way beginning
When I couldn’t get the world to center me in its arms
And when the nuns and priests
Made the formal introduction
Complete with strategies for survival

We continued together until
I kicked you out decades later
And padded through the desert
Until life got scarier than ever.

And then you showed up
Wearing a different face and a different robe
And I hooked arms with you
As we scaled the mount of mystery
Confident that reality was just ahead.

But I didn’t realize it was just underfoot,
A convenient tripstep that dashed my daze
And when I looked up you weren’t there.
Were you ever? No.
You were always imaginary,
Always the figment shaped like my fear
Tuckpointing my doubts with dust.

You died and left no progeny
Left me instead alone out here
On the windy plain of just-so,
Keeled over like an exorcee
Dumbstruck but delirious with expectation.

Reality is life balanced on a blade edge,
Inching along, an old worm working on wings.
Mumbling oh no oh my god I know now I KNOW:
We are the wings
Barely emerging, twitching to shrug off
This earthen encasement,
Wracking the whole worm with our struggle
To break free of it before it falls.

Disposing of the dead

I thought we'd sent you to the winds in a spray of acceptance
After which we all went our ways and made our days without you.

But who knew I had mummified and stashed you beneath the floorboards
Of my inmost name? Not even I, not even I, until

My own end loomed at last and I was forced to ruminate
And try to locate that inmost name so long forgotten, so draped with shame.

In a rage of remembrance I ripped away the door to your tomb
And found you cast in that terrified last gaze at life,

Staring straight at me with lips shaped as a why
And fingers curled around your last will and testament:

I am only a boy with no power and you are a man with intentions.
I scream for help while you pray for deliverance.

Welcome to my world, man of intentions, man of ambitions and science and health.
Now recompense me and take me away from this musty redoubt of your name.

Dispose of me now, in the fire of your love, in the sneeze of your passion,
In the flood of your tears, in the soil of your hopes, in the

Mist of the history of good people doing bad things
In spite of intentions.

Let me go so we both can live, you for now and me for then.
Exhume your curse, make dust of dust so we won't meet again.