Philosophy scratched what I thought was an itch
actually a scar; my scratches opened bloody floodgates
I did not clot for another decade as I pretended my sticky hands
were clean and fresh and immune to what I may have forgotten
the system shut down, as they say with computers, hard reboot
a second restart brought sense to sensation and a presence
to palpitations hidden by hundreds of thousands of words
by reading, survival was a pile of leaves, hopeful for a dry season
to wait out the sun and moon and stars until the universe
collapsed again to a tiny mote of me
extremes, rolled more quickly than the unconscious may have done
to pressurize, demonize, theorize a shelf of self
until my shattered, pulped wood declared this sparse forest
a home once again.
Roman Ryan 