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Monday, September 26, 2016

Welcome to My Mind

Something’s not right,
yet there’s nothing
to point at.

It’s a cold jittery jangle
in my chest --
my limbs ticklish
and waiting to spring
into action.

My brain restlessly
turning over every stone
with no clue
what it is looking for,
but I know it’s feverishly working
because my head
is sweating.

Of all the things
that can go wrong
which will it be?
My wife?
My kids?
My job?
My car?

Popping and jumping,
my mind reconstructs
past events
looking for the telltale clue,
the smoking gun,
the fatal flaw.

What is coming
that will undo me?

I try to predict when
and where my good luck
will dry up and blow away
like daisies
in a sandstorm.

“Trust in God”
“If God is with me”
etc etc etc
holy holy, …

God is calm,
no reason not to be.

God likes seeing me off-balance
every now and again,
keeps me humble
keeps me compliant

and God’s probably right
to do so

because we both know me
and if I am not on my toes
I get lazy
and the pencil remains ignored.

So this anxiety
is the call
to creation
to inquiry
to reconnection.

This connection doesn’t kill
the shivering anxiety
but it comforts me
for a while

as I wait for
the other shoe to drop.

6 comments:

  1. Anonymous11:27 AM

    Creatively well written poem.


    The mind as a machine has a fascinating and mysterious organism of cells - that can make us humans think beyond anything imaginable. You my friend created a phenomenal poem here. :)

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  2. I think life is meant to be lived on the edge and if you don't see the drop-off, then you haven't been paying attention.

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  3. God might want to have us feeling like we balance on the edge of falling... maybe it's the only way to hide something else.

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  4. Oh, I have listened for the drop of a shoe too many times. I don't peer to often into the future.

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  5. Really wonderful depiction of the way anxiety can chase us around and keep us prisoners in our own minds. I imagine the petals of the torn apart daisies in the sandstorm you describe, and it's just perfect.

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  6. too good to be true... I know the feeling. Lets hope the shoe never drops.

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