The Road

This is a new road
I don't remember when.
I know how. 
when, isn't important in a story 
And a story is what I am 

I broke in to myself one day. 

On a whim I sat on a black swivel chair 

And stared at nothing

Until I came into focus

 

I opened doors and shut them behind me

and went down familiar corridors I didn't recognize anymore

 

They were smaller now 

the edges were worn down 

the colors were licked away by winds

that blew like the ghosts of dead glaciers 

dead slow, constant and cold

I breathed in a cold memory

and let out a sigh 

and the fog in my breath 

colored the room golden for a single droplet of time 

the corridor settled back to grey 

I opened a door

The clouds were grey and dark

it was scary and it was beautiful

I was small

I thought of a ship in the ocean 

and I thought of a tiny paper cup 

And I saw me standing, there

on the ground

and the dark grey cloud 

The ocean was above me. 

It will fall. 

Is this the end of me? 

 

Will I become the ocean? 

It is watching me. 

It will fall, in its own time. 

I raise my hands, look up and close my eyes. 

I do nothing

I wait

This is in me and I am not in control 

I never was

Wars and battles and the death of things, 

the end of cycles and light 

rumbled within

For a split second, there was silence 

A stillness born before time pierced my being 

It called to me

 

I opened my eyes and I saw a dream 

I had seen it before 

In my dream I wept in yearning 

A God carved in stone 

moved, turned, and was still again 

I wept, because I had forgotten 

There was lightning

the dream was gone and cloud moved 

In my hand I held a box 

It finds me when I reach for it 

When I was a child, four years old, 

I lay upon the terrace of my home 

It was night and the concrete floor 

spewed out the heat of the day 

like an invisible hand ladling warm mist into a bowl 

I closed my eyes and opened them, 

I saw black and sparkling white 

and wisps of grey 

somewhere deep within 

I felt the illusion of distance cracking 

That is my first memory of the sky 

That was the first time I reached for the box 

It is in my hands now

Now, it is is square and bare 

it does not have a keyhole 

I realize It was never locked 

I will it to open

The cloud waits in me 

And I wait, for something to open