Heavy–


Dread runs
down my jaw,
like salty, boiling tar.
Viscous.
My skin sears,
screaming for just
one second
of relief
from this–

Death around my neck,
this crude, crooked, cruel, crushing yoke
shoving my one-step two-step
three inches deeper into slate or shale—
My feet can’t tell what ground they’re walking on
from water that would drown them whole– this
eternity of labor, just to take
a single step towards the next bend–

the wandering path infested with such
hellish empty words and gutting thoughts–
circling, swallowing
my next
one-step two-step from under my aching ankles
and foundering, lumbering, stumbling, fumbling feet.

Can I one-step two-step three times more?
My stomach revolts, surrendering
what little ghost remained,
but my heart says go for four,
though I doubt its integrity at this juncture,
a hunger that punctures my lungs,
and perfunctorily ruptures
my battered, brittle, rattled, ruined heart.


The Collector collects.

On the path of hellish empty words,
he’s asking me to add my yoke
to his growing pile of tons and tons
and tons of life and death and dark,
unbearable woes and griefs and weights
of many sizes, shapes and states.
But–

All my life, I respond, I have carried this yoke,
a living brand on dying ground,
though bitter the path and fruitless the soil,
I plow it now by the sweat of my brow.

How can I stand up on my own
Without the weight to balance me?
Don’t ask me this– it’s all I’ve known!
My heart wants to be free, but it can’t be!

Aren’t you thirsty?

He pointed to a far-off gleam–
In the field just beyond, there was a stream!

The quiet, quite blue-ness.
The clarity,
The purity–
The cleansing.


Give me your burden,
and I will let you drink
from that stream forever.

But I can’t.

Let it go, he says.
Trust the thirst.

He lifts his hood.

Behind his ratty hair and ruddy face
Lie two gentle pools of green and blue
and red and yellow, like–
a flame
singular
floating
dancing
like a whisper
on the face of alpine waters
beneath the shadow of ancient stone.

He cannot lie, say I,
and my heart beats twice, no–
three times faster.

And then– it’s gone.

I’m running,
splashing,
letting cool relief
Drip
Drip
Drip
Down my face.

But I turn back.

Gone.

I feel–
the burden–
return.

I feel for–my yoke–
not there–
but weight–
I cry out– I feel
feet slipping–
body–
sinking–
lungs–
air–
one
last
breath–

Slipping beneath the surface
Into the bluest blue depths.

Terror.
Then–

A boy, naked as he came—
But those pools—
Those colors—
They are the same.

I know this boy.

He grins
and touches my face,
Whispering:

Breathe, my dearest friend.
You must stop wriggling
like a fish out of water
if you want to live without chains.

He takes my hand
and drags me deeper,
further into the floor of the stream,
much deeper than I ever thought it could go.

His eyes become the sun,
and the deep shale glows as if in daylight.

I see living things
and treasures
and then I see
the pile of burdens
from travelers past,
towering high above the rest.

He points–
and I see it.

My yoke.

Not mine
Anymore.

Rest. Just–
Breathe.

(gasp)

–Light.