Journeys and Star Gazing

I walk through corridors of mortality and eavesdrop on midnight conversations behind closed doors. I seek passage thru flesh and blood. My body is aflame from within. Strange symbols, geometric shapes, hieroglyphics, and formulas arise with smoke under my skin. My whole body is ablaze with thought. “This must be what religious sighs are about,” whispered a voice, its origin unclear. Was it a fragment of my thoughts or an ethereal echo from outside?

I could no longer discern the boundaries between what resided within and what lingered in the realm beyond. The room seemed antique, an old globe of the Earth with mountains in relief rested on the table. Beyond it lying flat on the table old maps and pens. The lounge was filled with light streaming through the bamboo blinds, dust and what seemed smoke played through the bars of light. The rug looked familiar and the scent of aged paper emanated from the newspapers piled on the floor near the hat stand. Deje vu shimmered over the whole experience. I couldn’t remember how I got here but here I was.

My body’s posture, the arrangement of furniture in the room, and the very essence of the atmosphere—all reverberated through my nervous system. Every inch of my being tingled with anticipation, as a fresh wave of expectation surged within me, a neon tendril spiralling upward, igniting my nerve circuits. It was a jolt of recognition.

“Goggles won’t shield your vision here; only grace and prayer can,” the voice proclaimed, a little louder than a whisper. Was it within or without?

Aware that watchful eyes observed my every move, I carried the underground within my soul, fearing to be seen and recognized. In my world, to be recognized equated to the demise of the solitary man dwelling in the depths. My sole preoccupation was to exist within a semblance of freedom, an existence accustomed to the confines of necessity and fleeting desires. I believed that the subterranean recesses of my being would continue to graffiti accusations on the walls of time and space. Such eruptions, in their peculiar way, alleviate the burden of responsibility that weighed upon me.

Within my cube, heaven and hell were mere domains of shifting sand. The surface world revealed silhouettes of nature’s grandeur, while the subterranean perspective offered a parallax view—an elusive connection to some long-lost star. Here, in my cube of existence, the arc of coincidence stretches itself across wings of angels, as priests turn their gaze toward Jerusalem and fishermen toward the boundless ocean.

Here inside this cube, stars & galaxies appear under the guise of full stops. Sunlight cracks through sanity’s edges…just another fabrication to keep the emptiness away. I’m not afraid of emptiness; I can always find things to fill it with. What I worry about is the kind of things.

All of these are paperweights on my consciousness. My flat world cannot even be blown away!

Shipwrecked between head, heart, and soul, I skirt the periphery of existence, skating the thin veneer between illusion and reality. Here inside this cube…or is it a sphere? 

I cry for release.