Unattainable Paradise

The knots of temptation snakes hotly around

my neck to grapple at the reins of my thoughts

Steering me into a fantasy where I long to be

at peace

A calm and serene fuzzy haze of a concocted

paradise

It’s a lone blue earth with a purple sky

There it’s always 5:59pm and one occupant

sits around a campfire

The ground is a field of white grain, slipping

and clinging to the crease between my toes

Seagulls are circling ahead and the vengeful

ocean is crashing its waves in an alarm

Begging to get my attention so I can examine

the wrecked Arc that drifted ashore

It’s fractured and hollowed out like my insides

So I don’t look

I hone in on the burning embers before me

I want to reach out and feel that flame lick the

palm of my hand and melt the ice away from

my veins so I can feel my heart beating again

I pull back and take a deep gasping breath

Here the air isn’t as suffocating and polluted

I can begin to feel my own existence as the

oxygen flows freely through my lungs

And suddenly — I don’t want to leave

Why should I?

I’m surrounded by my favorite color

I’m so warm and full of life, it’s like I’m in my

mother’s womb again

And I get to turn my back on the anxiety and

the depression that wants to remind me of all the things I have lost and have yet to lose

But the sea begins to whisper my name

No — it’s more of a hiss

Then eventually a scream

The purple fades to black then a startling

white

The heart monitor besides me is working

overtime

And the salt water that falls from above me

stings as I listen to the woman who gave birth

to me cry