Our chemical hearts.
Yours. Mine.
Theirs.
Organs thumping
again and again,
unabashed.
I wrote a story recently,
one about a man
who saved a woman by CPR.
He pressed
and pressed and pressed
and pressed.
She faded in
and out. Her pulse unsure
about this world and
tempted by the next.
He pressed
and pressed and pressed,
again.
She lived
and lived and lived
and lived.
I can feel my own heart now,
steady, unchanging.
2022 tested the limits of it,
as 2021 did before,
and all those formidable years before.
I lived in limbo,
fading in and out
as the world spun
all too quickly.
I lived and lived
and lived.
Looking back,
I’m not entirely sure how,
but boy am I glad I did.
If the act of writing was violent,
I wrote until I nearly bled out,
stumbling with my head
stuck in the clouds.
I hid in a trench so deep
no one could dig me out.
I laughed and cried,
neither emotion coordinating
with their usual expression.
I was we, for a short period.
A whirlwind.
I finished the longest
and shortest period of my life.
I broke.
Then was sutured.
I drove and drove
and drove,
finding serenity within the trees
and nearly passing out
in the Oklahoma sun.
I made use of my brain to hand
connections,
writing for more than myself.
I’m not sure what to expect
for next year.
My guards are up,
like the gutter bumpers
in bowling.
I want for so much,
but most of all,
I wish for a kinder sea
for me and you.
So It Goes 