A Fractured Life

Messages…

So many messages

From a young age

At every possible stage

Bombarding me

Do this, but not that

Be like this, oh not that!

I was taught

To listen

To learn

To obey

Repercussions of failure

Filled me with dismay

Yes

There was love

There was joy

The usual ups and downs

They looked at me

With adoration, admiration

But I also noticed all the frowns

The acquisition

Of money, power, status, fame

I had to win

At this one and only game

I built my palace

In a new land of dreams

Brick by brick

Burying my inner voice

Layer by layer

Ignoring its desperate screams

Days and nights

Of incessant toils

Bringing home the spoils

Of stories weaved with care

How could I dare

To let the mask slip?

And then poof!

It all came crashing down
Burning and twisting my insides

The carnage spilling over

The end of that story

The fame and reflected glory

Was it

My race?

My religion?

My identity?

My beliefs or my capacity

To mutate

To fit in at all costs

To assimilate

What could make

This pain abate

What I wouldn't spend

To get out of this state

Or

Should I simply end

This Fractured Life?

And then I found

I had to lose it all

To hear that sound

Weak though it was

It was certainly still around

It took work

It took stillness

To unlearn unsee unhear

Old voices, old stories

Develop the courage to listen

A regular practice

To rechristen

My own story

As my songs of Union

Became the Voice

Heard-unheard

Seen-unseen

Felt, tasted, melted

And the me emptied unto the Me

The 'i' transformed into I

That encompassed all of infinity

I simply knew

A fractured life

In re-Union

Each moment

Is made whole anew

- January 27, 2016, Seattle