Upwards

One day I wake up and

feel as if I’m falling upwards--

as if

I don’t have pounds and pounds

of baggage weighing me down,

self-doubt chaining my ankles

to my shadow which creeps along

the earth

mimicking and mocking me

as it commiserates with my torment.

I’m rushing upwards,

flying higher and higher

than I’ve ever been.

It’s a cloudy day,

with thunder rumbling demands through the heavens

and thunderstorm inflated clouds,

swollen like pregnant bellies,

dripping raindrops

but inverted they are dagger-like

as I rush to meet them,

pinpricks of freshwater kisses

that slip in kinky nips of teeth

as tributaries of lightening rip

through the sky,

bathing me in light until I am left bare

with more energy than I know what to do with

and my hair is standing end on end

as Nature’s electrified stretch marks

disappear as I pass through them terrified

for my life.

I plead and plead

to Nature raging around me

that she set me right,

bow her will to Gravity’s,

and return me back to sweet sweet ground,

back to the horrible but familiar

comfort of my shackles and the

unending vise of my demons

that strangle and weigh me down.

“Let me down,” I shout

but my voice is lost with

the speed of my ascension.

I toss.

I dive.

I thrash.

But still

upwards into the storm I continue.

And suddenly I remember

how even though lightening,

like complex tragedy.

strikes down onto the

Earth without notice,

The Earth always strikes back,

arches of lightning flashing upwards

from the ground

as it redirects the sky’s energy

quicker and stronger than our eyes

could ever catch.

And somehow,

falling upwards like a rocket,

screaming as I am bathed and baptized by storms

and reaching sightlessly for space,

I run into myself,

having been in my own way,

and I find that I am not falling upwards

at all.

Defying gravity,

and in spite of myself,

I am rising.