Disembodied

How wretched it is, being a human being that cannot be

to be heaved from the raft meant to carry you 

and to inhabit a homeland that makes you homesick

How defeating to not be able to steer your vessel 

while out looking for the scattered slabs of your own dismembered soul 

And how absolutely devastating to not understand any of this at all

Most never know the blessing in their own effortless embodiment 

unless they meet the anguish of its absence 

Many things can make it so

Whether it be through little T or big T 

the fates of the initiatory 

or karma brought with them

from the boundless Before

My paper skin and shadow companion in my periphery 

ensured I was severed by 11 

So many letters tossed around in the years that followed

GAD and OCD and ADD

Nothing made me more bitter than CBT

All the misguided fixing left me

pleading to the the gods 

to tell me why the “right” ways

felt so abhorrently wrong

Why did deep belly breaths elicit terror and tension 

And why was I cursed to meet the eyes of Medusa when I peered into my mind 

Feed the rules of rigid rationality 

to the tigers I feel 

eyeing up my naked neck

The mind holds no power 

over a system on fire  

or a spiritual emergency 

You cannot affirm your way into love 

while holding heads below water

You cannot tame a beast by sewing crescent moon to mouth

And you cannot toss buttercups into a battlefield and expect them to grow

I mourn for the girl who carried the cross of blame

and was bludgeoned by misunderstanding 

A mantra I can now carry

and actually believe:

It was never your fault 

It was never your fault

It was never your fault