I had strings of seven thousand colors
all wound about my mind;
each spun from a single spool
beginning somewhere within my heart,
running up behind my eyes
to where life resides
and spinning out into the rest of world
to wrap ‘round all my delights.
Each thought, a desire in color;
each color an angle of light
that held me aloft above a smoking pit
that sought to be my life.
And my desires; those seven thousand strings
all pulled me up and out
till I was certain that I’d discovered
what I could never live without
then, one by one, those brilliant little strands
snapped beneath the weight
of the idols I had made of them
and what I desired became the stone
dragging me down into the smoke
of all the forests I’d burned.
I was certain I would die, there in dark and dusk
in the cold, beneath my computer desk
till you came with one fiery, white-hot rope
to wrap ’round my broken heart
and bind the pieces up.
Then you drew me, like a string draws a balloon
out from under the smoking earth
and up with the sun
where now I dangle, a thousand feet aloft
hanging, my hand in yours
flying like a soul finally awake,
having tasted all the stars
and been rescued from their shame.
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