The Way Up

Sequel to The Way Out

You’ve chased your tail,

now you’re at a stalemate,

running down every dead-end corridor

psychotically beating on every door.

The only way out of this maze is

Up.

The blue, buzzing ceiling lights are unpromising,

so I must face the lies within myself and rise above them.

Gazing up, up into the heavens of my mind,

my eyes detach from my head.

These dreams of you are bricks on my ankles,

keep repeating,

but I never thought I’d let you defeat me.

You are just a part of me.

I’m still here.

I wake up suicidal with the dreamsicle sunrise,

though the light behind my eyes burns on

and compels me to live.

To live, I must overcome;

crawl out of the comfortable cocoon I’ve trapped myself in

and fly up, away.

I’ll still be me and I am the problem,

it’s no man, no city, not my mother, nor society—

I must transform my head,

stop choking myself to death.

Gazing up, up into the heavens of my mind,

my eyes and ears detach from my head,

no longer can I be led:

astray by the illusions I hear and see;

into the black, stormy ocean with bricks on my ankles—

I can’t swim.

I’ve gotta face that, stop following you or I’ll drown.

If I chain my ankles to the hollow ground

I’ll be dead and buried before I learn to live.

I tried giving this world all I had to give

and it smeared shit in my face,

I became a dog.

All it took was three words and an expression,

my life was undermined,

compromised as a building sinking into sandy soil,

should I throw fireballs back?

The only way out of this maze is

Up.

Gazing into the heavens of my mind,

my eyes, ears, and mouth detach from my head.

I inhale a crisp, autumnal breath,

remember:

each time in the past the leaves fell, Everything died, winter came,

and It was reborn.

05 September 2009