Betrayal

I remember visiting the Mammoth Cave in Kentucky

when I was 13 years old.

Clad in a plaid shirt and shapeless jeans,

the younger version of myself

soaked in the tour guide's didactic instructions

and musings - he said,

"stalagmites form from the ground up

("G for ground")

stalactites form from the ceiling down."

The stalagmites in my Life --

god

him

family

came crumbling down in the course of a night,

or did it erode over time

yet I was too blind to see?

How do you make straight

what is so tortuous and bent out of shape

How do you iron out

the kinks

the serpentine path

the devastating digressions

the accidents

the mistakes

the wrong turns

the plethora of dead ends?

Drowning in wine I tried,

but no more.

My body screams for a respite

and the older version of myself

yearns to return to the cave

of my youth,

and seek refuge and comfort in the terrestrial formations

that seemed so sure and absolute and indestructible Evermore --

the signs of my youth