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