when the worry sets in

what do you do?

your body doesn’t ask permission

or ponder

it starts to act

heart shivering in dread

uncertainty as skin beads

wet with what if

breathing to survive

somehow

all within seconds of

nothing happening

when the worry sets in

what do you do?

clarity of me

starts to fade

as if before a cinema

when lights dim

volume amped

“pay attention!”

“listen over here!”

anxious to the unknowing reality

and receding from what you know to be true

the opening scene wastes no time

all senses overshadowed urgently

life and death or

whatever electrifies the dread to life

as the monsoon intensifies

and a mudslide seems to wash away

all but an emaciated layer

of the unifying source of sustenance

to reveal an inconceivable tangle of

unrest

doubting whether you’ve gone too far this time?

has the fear become fact?

fiction nonfiction?

the downpour of panic

as thoughts suffocate soul beneath

a wicked bare shelter

to weather the storm

if you’re lucky this time

when the worry sets in

what do you do?

let it go

we’ve heard it over and over

don’t tell me again

I

CAN’T

knuckles

tense with strain

compulsively washed

fingers

stuck in the

mental flux

clutching onto

tissue paper thin

like my skin

relief

cracked as the opposite extreme

as if the cessation of rain would be the end of it

soaked but then suddenly on

fire with frustration

dry depleted earth begins to part ways

opening to

blood red reservoirs

storing life beneath

and yet give way to the dead

how can I

release in a cataclysmic cyclone without loosing all

I know to be the

ground

when the worry sets in

what do you do?

and yet through this incessant

storm

drought

fury

somehow

the indelible consciousness

‘I know the truth’

sits there

in the I

warmth of nature’s equilibrium

when the worry sets in

what do you do?

finally the lights come up,

outside

dazzling after darkness

and sitting in the projector’s booth

in that same black plastic folding chair

crocheted cushion worn uneven beyond comfortable

but the only familiar foundation felted into that

frozen,

opaque box

painted matte,

sitting there with eye behind the reel

reality

finally,

in a coming attraction

you remember

your control panel

sitting right there all along

but thick dust and routine automation has a way of

covering possibilities

but now, bringing the lights up

inside

couldn’t be easier

a simple slide

and there you are…

as you were

as you will always be

when the worry sets in

you do nothing

so you could choose to watch it again or

maybe

honor the existence of that

beautiful white screen

you know is always there

and play something else

after all,

you’re the projector

you’ve already seen this one a million times

and it always has the same ending.

even better,

when the worry sets in,

take the day off

even in their seats already, no one else will mind

they’ll applaud in gratitude

they’re sick of this one too,

let them enjoy the blank screen for a while

it’ll feel like a world premiere

and you?

when the worry sets in

let the rays come out