Are you all right?

Are you all right?

How I hate the question...
What do you want me to say?

Yes, I'm all right
I'm still breathing
Is that what it takes
to 'be all right'?

I won't mention the inner turmoil...
I love you, so
I won't inflict upon you
the twisting and turning
of my burning heart
the hatred and scorn I feel
for my own
self-destructive tendencies

I won't tell you
about how I dream
of slashing the flesh of my arms
with a razor blade
because then you would worry
that the breathing bit
of being all right
might be compromised

You would wonder
who the creature is
that you thought you knew
that you had
compartmentalised

I don't WANT to slash my arm
it just feels as if
that would be some form of release
for the uncomfortable energy
that's churning around in here

Feel the flesh separating from itself
see blood bubbling from within
carrying the toxin perhaps
dropping
onto the painstaking earth
and dissipating

I WON'T slash my arm
Because then you would see...
You could no longer ignore the truth of me

And if you can't ignore it then neither can I

So don't ask
if I am all right
because the truest answer
is impossible to formulate
and even a close approximation
is likely to obliterate
the true complexity

Just accept I'm travelling
and sometimes
the road is filled with rubble
so if you see me stumble
just reach out and
take my hand
for a moment

You take yourself to the mountain top
and sit amongst the clouds
you trek down to the sea's edge
and feel the rhythm of the turning earth
you press your hands
into the sand of the desert
feel the heat upon your skin
seek the place
the heart's honest landscape
where you the earthling
seeking heaven
best fit in

My journey
is a different one
it takes place while I sit here
seeing the thoughts flash by
with the eye of my mind
as if on a train
but the train is motionless
and it is the world that moves
I find doorways in my thoughts
secret passages
tunnels and traps
cloudless skies
red eyes
bloated cheeks
blistered skin

It happens while I sit -
feeling the internal bleeding
counting purple bruises -
but I am confident
that at some point
I will straighten the fibres
twine them together
and draw the thread
across the loom
and all the colours
I have found
will lie in harmony
against each other
and the fabric
will at last
make sense