Now I Know What Gravity Is

Dear, I’m broken open,
My mouth a gaping hole.
It’s all I know now.
Nothing else comes close to mattering at all.
The sights of all our world
Are but a backdrop for the stars.
I’ve been severed from head to foot.
There is no going back.
I feel, I feel, I only feel
The world is dragging at my heel.
I utter words that fit my body’s role
But it’s a shell
And I’m in hell
And heaven all the same.
Inside there is no rest
But an expanse of stars
The universe an openness.
I say I want more than anything to die
To fall into this open starry sky
Why the world if we belong
In the open bound to all and none?

I could paint you a picture:
Every planet spinning on itself.
Not a mass, but a whirling
Creating its own gravity
(A game and I hate it) –
As do also the stars
Which create my sky of beauty
That I see when I’m freed from gravity.

One small body but I’m never complete.
I’ve been this way so long now.
One moment turned me inside out
On my head,
Flipped my world upside down.
I swam in a sea of stars
Inside the chamber in my heart
That nothing else has ever reached.

When you’re broken open the clouds bleed
The walls cry an endless river
It never stops flowing and the water falls forever.
You see in a moment
How everything does scream
And it pulses –
Remember, the world is a reflection.

When you’re broken open
You lose your dreams
The past falls off and you are clean
Standards fade like salt in water.

You were searching for something
To hold in your hand
And admire forever;
Endless fire.
But all that you get when you leave the world –
That ‘thing’ is everything,
Impossible to hold.

All that changed
Is a sword pierced through
And made a wound that will never heal.
Now maiden of mourning, walk the earth
Forever crying, singing, dying.
All you say will never say it all.
Love is an endless waterfall.
Not the bottom or the top where’s there’s rest
But the falling, falling you cannot catch.

I never thought I’d think this way
But I’m only cynical about the day to day
And the games, I point them out
But what’s it matter?
Most people do not want to shatter what they think they are.

You’ll never get far – the world is a sphere
And after a while
You’re back where you started.

Life on earth is confinement if you’re awake
So many cobwebs off to shake
And your spirit’s always thwarted.

What did I want? A form to hold like a cup.
I wanted to always keep my mood up.
But if I were at peace I’d write none of these –
I don’t know if that spares your eyes and ears.
How many more years of this game must I bear
Before I am out there?

02/21/11