I rise

Drip drip drip
Did you leave the faucet running?
Drip drip drip
If only the pilgrim could find his way
Back back
Back to the awaiting foothills.
Everyone has a foothill awaiting them:
whether on a mountain or a green and luscious valley,
on an island in the blue-as-her-eyes sea,
or in her eyes themselves.
And we may map it, sing it
but never find it—
the place called home.

I’ve tried to find it on the lips of nameless women,
but they fall mute when I kiss them
and I forget to ask.

I felt therefore I was.
Cognitive dissonance like a drop, in a bucket, in a rainstorm.
One drop.
One bucket.
I kissed therefore I loved.
Is that another mantra or just a lie?
Too much thinking in here…
It’s becoming quite hard to drink.
The scent of thought is heady,
reminding me of a temple I once knew
which reminds me of a girl.
Oh, the stories I could tell.

Drip drip drip
Drops in a bucket.
There are currents in this stream of consciousness—
flash floods and torrents and waterfalls.
Freud would approve or
maybe he wouldn’t—
Who knows what dead men say these days?
Ut quid dereliquisti me?
She’s left me to wander through circles of me.

Enough.

Enough tears
Enough drops
When you’ve traveled far enough you’ll find
there’s only one direction.
Up.
Ascendo.

Tumbling, churning, wanting, yearning
splayed fingers claw at the sunlight
lungs burning
I rise from the depths like a bubble,
ex nihilo,
like a god from the void.
De profundis clamo ad te.
Ascendo.