In My Head - Dec 24 2024

 

In My Head

Dec 24 2024

Get out of your head

I’ve told myself

time and time again,

worrying the same damned thing

like rosary beads

turned over and over

in nervous hands.

All this introspection

like too much of anything

won’t end well;

the way an echo chamber

can be deafening,

your own voice

sounds odd, annoying, detached

when you hear it played back,

no matter what you said

or meant to say.

After all, how can the self-examining brain

be two things at once

  —  the inquisitor

in his studded leather hood,

and the prisoner

shackled to a chair

in a cinderblock cell

with a single bare bulb

swinging overhead?

Interrogating my past

starts feeling like I’m trapped

in a hall of mirrors

at some infernal amusement park,

seeing image after image

getting smaller and smaller

and more inexact,

until it’s hard to be sure

who I really am.

Not funhouse mirrors

that make me look grotesque,

just reflection on reflection

in which the errors add up.

Or like looking down a bottomless well

at infinite versions of myself,

then leaning out

for a better look

until I topple in;

no one to rescue me

from its deep dark depths,

and a hard climb back.

So I go outside

into the brisk night air

and walk,

watching the dogs

who are off-leash

and full of life as ever.

Man’s best friend,

who never introspect

retrospect

or resurrect

old grievances

and cherished resentments.

Who are utterly ingenuous,

never suppressing their joy

or being coy

about how they really feel.

Who are content

with simple pleasures.

Who don't wallow in the past

or stress about their future.

And who are always fully present,

living in the now

as if life goes on forever

and they’re just what they were meant to be.