Whole Again

     I saw the trouble on the horizon.  A small black speck, a horseman, featureless and small.  As it drew closer, I didn’t know if it was a conscript I manifested from unclean living and paranoid thought processes, or if it was as concrete and real as the fact that I was born into this world. A world of dichotomy and disparate circumstances. Circumstances that I could never quite seem to blame on environment or timing, or on somebody else. I would always take full responsibility. it was where my heart lay. A heart that knew that there was beauty in this life, but that the beauty was cinched on all sides by desire and fear. Beauty was created to be  consumed, processed and discharged as joy, a happiness to be spread thickly and evenly, butter on toast, lotion on smooth pale skin. But for me, the harbinger of things to come was always a specter that kept the joy in check, making anxiousness a fixture not unlike grandmas hope chest, the one that could be mine if walked the  line expected of the righteous, the line that good people walk. There were times that I thought I had embraced happiness, had beat the beasts into submission and lived the life of the lion, hunting when I had to, loving when I could and relaxing in the vastness of the savannah not scared of the lightning on the horizon. But as the rider closes in, I can see the severe grin on her face, the cracked veneer of her lips and her hand reaching for mine.  I will go with her, I always do, but first I hand her my locket, the one with the picture of my mother.  A token of my affection of the fact that joy is nothing without the warm wet kiss of suffering. She pulls me astride and we ride into a darkening sky, ready to slay the beasts that would eat our hearts and come out on the other side thinking that we are whole again.

Reviews

[Neville]

You are damned good at this game man, too damned good :)

[Crowley]

You're a flatterer...I love it. thanks Neville!

[Neville]

You are more than welcome, always a pleasure..

[olla]

I began holding my breath at "taking full responsibility for where my heart lay" well written.. worth holding my breath for..

[Crowley]

Thank you for the review!!! Sorry about the breath...hope you didn't get dizzy!!!

[olla]

some would say I was born dizzy.. but no.. my time with a voice coach expanded my breath control.. but your poem did challenge the residual strength of my diaphragm..

[Crowley]

Lol...glad you enjoyed it!

[olla]

I did.. thank you very much.. strains of "the lion sleeps tonight" drift through my mind..

[CD Campbell]

Well that was f***** incredible! The lion on the savannah and happiness as butter on toast, dude I saw queenies review below and that shallow B.S. is not needed. Ha! I know humility and all that. A lot of great lines and those mentioned above were the tip of iceberg. Well, I dont want to seem like an a*s kisser, but I really enjoyed all the emotion displayed throughout the peice. Have a good one C.!!!

[Crowley]

Well thank you for the awesome review!!! One of those writes that starts with a line and meanders where it wants to! Have a great weekend!

[emmajoy]

' There were times that I thought I had embraced happiness, had beat the beasts into submission and lived the life of the lion, hunting when I had to, loving when I could and relaxing in the vastness of the savannah not scared of the lightning on the horizon. But .. .. '

Seems you've captured your own demons here. Seems you've been - might still be, aware to warnings, experiences, emotional malfunction, ugliness and all. Descriptions here of the ancient brought into modern times when instincts are less used than so-called logic. Your language in this writing is so far above the norm, seems a mix of core fearr and awareness of something welcoming. Fear, the She is often the deliverer,,

This truly is an Awakening written with anxious determination. One of your very best, if i might say: that, considering how often you post awesome writes!

[barleygirl]

This is a superb character profile thru vivid SHOW (& FEEL) instead of tell. I'm catching the strong well-developed vibe of an over-analytical nerd on an endless quest for meaning or purpose in his life. I have a cousin (doctorate in psychology from Stanford never used for anything but self over-examination) & he wrote one epistle after another thru the height of his most pathetic yearning phase. I may have been the only one in the family who actually read & responded to him. I wish his self-absorbed ramblings had been written like this piece of yours . . . full of sparkling imagery & whipping details into a frenzy with embellishment, to make it fun & lively. Thanks for this inspiration for me to write more seriously (after I get this Halloween freak out of my craw) Fondly, Margie

[Crowley]

Thanks luv!!! I always appreciate it when I can pique you interest! Hope you are well!

[Robert Trakofler]

this just screams novel intro... this screams more to me! It drew me in and I want to see more and that's the whole truth Crowley!!! Wow I loved this more more more I want more boom boom boom

[Crowley]

Kind of does doesn’t it...lol. Thanks BB, really appreciate it!

[Gypsy Warrior Queen]

but were we ever really whole to begin with, maybe it's just been an illusion all along?..............Deep as the Sea Cee!

[Crowley]

My thoughts are so shallow you could wade through them and your shoes would never get wet....lol. Thanks Q!!!

[Lorry]

That small black speck of those that went before, casts shadow on all current and future happiness, with its niggling pessimism that life makes us cynical, which itself leads to an inability of ever breaking the pattern that happiness always seems to end in pain.
But we try, to give each person a fair go, without pressing judgements... But how they linger within.
Beautifully expressed, as always.

[Crowley]

Thanks Lorry! Well said!

[kentuck14]

Big C,
I would agree with Annette . . . this is a dreamscape. For me the confession of the speaker to say that beauty is something to be "consumed" shows me the moral and philosophical weakness he labors under. The only thing he receives is temporary . . . happiness fades, butter dries up, becomes rancid. Happiness fades fast when the mind expects evil to come the very next moment. Not much of a life when anxiousness is the only thing in the hope chest! How long can we fight our beasts (demons) and still win?! How true that speaker discovers that only through suffering that we can experience real joy. One can say that without suffering . . . there is no possibility of joy. I do not see the rider as a friend or hero . . . but a kind of co-dependent who feeds off the illusions of the
lost. Interesting poem as usual C. Thanks.
T

[Crowley]

Sorry for the late reply!!! Thank you so much. Been trying to corral life lately and have been on only a bit. Need to remedy that.

[Annette Pisano-Higley]

A landscape, a dreamscape, a journey through life and time, a journey to self-discovery and ‘wholeness’. ..Crowley your amazing words and imagery are spellbinding. The symbolism is powerful and provocative. Living on the edge exacts a price. Taking, consuming is often a barter. The narrator lives freely but carries the memory of his mother in a locket which, along with the specter astride the horse, gets him through a personal hell and out the other side intact. Love and suffering, blood and sand, desire and pain- all ride the same horse. Beautifully written my friend.