(This is one of my quasi stream-of-consciousness poems, from 2 March 2017. The musical "catalyst" I was listening to is the instrumental cover of Sam Smith’s “Stay With Me” done by Brooklyn Duo, linked below.)

I feel like listening to music
Soaking in beauty and weeping
I feel like standing out in a storm and being blown away
By the wind stripping everything bare
I feel like sinking to the bottom of a lake
And taking one last gasp for air
Feeling the still and the dark
The pressure of the water and
The softness of the murky floor
I feel like flying away, a kite
Brightness lost in the colorless clouds
I feel like soaring I feel like falling I feel like sinking
I feel a piece missing from my heart
Left behind somewhere that I passed by
Waving to me through the bus window
While it pulls away
But I was not looking
And I did not know
I feel like sitting here I feel like running to the end of the world
I feel like holding on to everything and throwing it all away
I feel like crying and like there is no use in tears
I feel frozen and at the same time melted
Filled with the peculiar calm that only comes in chaos
A demure Resignation joining hands with my Ambition
As they dance along the street
Saying who cares that we may be odd bedfellows
They smile sad smiles and share doleful joy
Gazing into each other’s mysterious faces
And wondering what lies in their depths
Laughing and teasing
Turning secretly away
To cry in hurt and shame
Pulling too hard
Pushing too far
Breaking away
Leaving scars
Of misunderstanding
On a tormented soul
Torn and tossed and bewildered
Wanting everything gone
Yet mourning and longing already for all the things I love
Wondering what is love, really
And why is it worth living
Crying from a suffocating heart
Looking for meaning in the world
A way to make sense of things
I do not make sense myself
Forgetting to breathe
Lying here
I could so easily be gone
I want to be swept away
I want to be freed
This mind this body this world
Swallow me
And who am I
Existence is such a queer thing
So here we are
Take a sigh
Take a bow
Lights out
Who knows what dreams will come
Of feeling
And not feeling
And ending it all
I breathe
I feel
I turn over
One foot continues in front of the other
On this strange and strangling path
My heart throbbing
As if the life is bleeding out of me

Heart throbbing
Throbbing heart
Throbbing
Heart

Can one live without this pain
Is this throbbing
Merely what it means
To even have a heartbeat

____________________________


https://youtu.be/B22eZY1PESY?fbclid=IwAR3qZE5VmI6k7wjQ6kybFpJ3BeFn4vP5OWFjQv1YebWi4H3_yts8lEw2Bfw