The Worm

June 12

THE WORM

Because there is never enough punishment for those who inflict hurt, I punish myself.  Only I can tell if the depth of the pain is a match; only I can judge when  enough is enough.  This is the turn of the drunken worm who lives in my brain.  The belief that what began in pain must end there, too.  Even now in recovery, I persist in hurting myself a thousand tiny ways. setting trap after trap to catch the perpetrators,  I make my heart a mine field, a place unfit for me to live.  I must sober the worm and let myself off the hook.

Dip intentions into action and let them firm up.

*

Circular Needles

I react badly when I find a loose thread

because I never know what might be unraveling.

I have knit my heart out;

have dropped an occasional stitch to be sure.

Unbeknown to me these little holes in my logic

wait for the stress of overextension

to run through the length of my life, untying earnest work.

If I could catch these unsecured thoughts

before it all goes too far ,

I might have a chance to hook back into the main fabric

and prevent this unfurling of collateral.

When the cord is cut and the line flaps freely real panic ensues.

Even if capture of both ends is possible,

knots are awkward, unseemly and gauche.

I was planning a seamless life, smooth and beyond reproach.

My fear of reprisal flares

before the ever-burning coals of abject self-doubt

have a chance to be felt.

This banked inferno generates the things which bake and fry my nerves,

burn my threads and disintegrate my mantle.

I need to put out the fire before I re-knit my world.