PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

Runaway thoughts,

roaring along bent tracks pockmarked with impact craters;

a train with a dead engineer at the helm.

Beautifully lush countryside screams across the horizon as we rush along,

a haze beginning to creep out beyond the trees,

the scenery morphing into that of a fevered codeine dream--

sorrowful euphoria has me cry with glee at the subtle chaos,

as the vibrant greens are overtaken by the crawling mist,

snuffed out into mere shadows of their former selves,

a brilliant vacuum suddenly erasing the colors of life.

My once incandescent spirit now flickers,

for what destination could lie at the end of this manic ride?

A bleak pathway of doubt and pandemonium,

descending along a twisting thoroughfare into the heart of the Inferno;

the incline is hit at speed and we rush forward headlong,

a miry wake of miserable self-pity and doubt left behind like a trail of broken glass.

Panic greets me like a slap to the face--

the wooden grip of catatonia is loosened,

a fresh resolve exploding throughout like a shot into an artery.

I leap up, the controls to this doomed transport my only focus,

seeking some way to save this ride from reaching eternal oblivion.

Infernal voices rise as I fumble across the panel,

casting judgments and condemnation,

each one with an air of truth about them,

stinging sharply as though caught in the open under a sudden hailstorm:

     "Why couldn't you have done this differently?"

     "If only you had spoken up..."
     "It's all your fault!"

Wary hands turn this knob and that,

clenched eyes concealing the growing horror within them,

when suddenly the engine dies and inertia seizes me;

I slam forward into the plexiglass of the cabin,

brilliant stars erupting in the blackness of closed eyelids,

an awe-inspiring spectacle to witness as consciousness fades.

Gone is the train staring down the fires on the horizon,

replaced by the sterile bright lights of a hospital's confines.

The fog is lifting, and familiar scenes come into focus as memory is restored:

the sleepless nights, the bodily groans, the paralytic waking nightmares of yesterday;

delirium, pure and unfettered, punctuated at times by screams choked out amidst convulsions.

This hellish journey has destroyed the old self,

leaving behind a pile of ash from which something stirs--

with a groan emerges a Phoenix of old,

singed by the encircling flames yet equipping them as a form of armor,

each feather a different stanza in the epic poem of its creation.

Shine on, fiery spirit of renewed vigor,

for those who have struggled as we have could use some light in their darkened tombs.

Amid chaos and self-destruction, I've found love;

not of another, for that can only come after, but of self,

recognition of hidden strength finally dawning under these formerly abysmal skies.

The beauty of God emanates from within,

radiating through celestial eyes and warming smiles,

pulling me further out of the shell I'd outgrown

and into the Light of Life all around.