I Never Knew

I rode slow moving buses and efficiently romantic trains. There were ticket stubs from planes and boats. Through long roads in the back of a pickup truck and down deserted dirt roads. I swam in warm blue watered beaches and jumped from torrential waterfalls. I searched. In the desert, beneath the blackened moon, I danced with the hope of something more. With every salty tear, I longed for the meaning. The questions? The answers? Someone? Something? I hoped, I knew, I looked. I wandered. I cut my heart to bits in the search from human to human. My little body was propelled by a restless urge. Little feet moved to the song of unheard lullabies. Almond eyes scoured for a glimmer of light amongst the vacant stares and drooling gestures. In the window reflections, with the philosophizing hobos and street urchins. I talked and read and cried. I hoped, I dreamed of the challenge, of the uncompromising, of the unordinary. Of true love. Of meaning.
And as I wandered and stumbled, as I flew and ran and skipped and crawled…I somehow found it. On a southbound train amidst the masses of machines and beneath the heavy burden of mortgages, 401k plans, suits and slumber. I found it. The knowledge. The gate. The signs were black, almost hidden in the night, just a smile and a long white finger pointing to the left.
And it is here, enveloping me. Smothering me, its arms, its tentacles, its heavy clutches are inside, poking at every hole and wound. I am here, I could never have imagined. This is what I desired. This was the meaning for the search. This was my hope and this is hard. Harder than I could have ever imagined.
I am hauling trees, carrying my wounded body. I am in battle. I am my constant enemy. I am my only hope. I am the worker and the builder of coffins and steel cages. Speak to me in the language of feathered friends and secretive cold winds. On the brink of many tears, I spill my energy like wine. En par with careless sorority girls and dirty men. I spill and blunder, staining the marbled floor. There are red footprints, fossils of breasts. In this clear cage, this brilliant cage. This darkened cell. This moment of lightness and love. This pit of self pity and red fear. The words of my parents, the lessons of school and movies. The glances from strangers, the energetic patterns of old lifetimes and meaningless collections of clutter.
I am in this maelstrom. These bits spiral around me in an endless dance. I stare, fear brimming from every hole, tears spilling like the rivers of Egypt. I never knew it would be like this. Never thought the secrets could be so hard. This is it. This is not the liberating paradise, the free-for-all love bash. This is not calm, this is not tranquility.
This is the edge. The place where every fear and sorrow exists, the place where love is easily forgotten, but it can also be Seen. On this edge, it is felt for the first time. This is the building of the Real. Solid and changing. Opalescent and invisible. Cluttered and shifting into nothing. The masks of image dance. They show off in their parades of spectacle and perversion. They feed on my channels of hate. These boats scour the coast side, waiting for a moment; they come often and quickly, biting in hard before I can scream. Huddled and shocked, I lay on the dirt path, just steps from the gate. I am here, filled with dread, filled with fear, riddled with tears.
And there is only one option. I must move forward. The knowledge is nowhere else. The secrets are ahead and about, but they are not free. Each step is a motion away from death, a thousand demons hold my legs. A thousand dirty hands grab the tendrils of my hair. Red marks cover my buttocks, lashings have severed parts of my heart. But there is no turning back. There is a cord, a golden chain that keeps me from running. Tethered somewhere in the distance, I can feel your heart urging me forward. I take another step and try to remember myself.