Islands

I've spent another day asleep.

Numb to the world, to the cold.

The sirens and alarms drifted by as I slept,

never fully waking me. It's as if I'm on

a floating island, drifting aimlessly across the ocean.

Ships pass close, islands, continents too. Lately,

some of the islands seem impossibly far away.

I reach out with my arms and eyes, waving

and looking for someone to wave back.

But when we pass close together, when our islands meet,

a harbor is closed. A boat is leaking. The tide is low.

Something stands obstinately in the way. A stone sentinel,

reaching his hands into the ocean, declares that this too

shall not pass. That now is neither the time nor the place.

Then I must choose to fight the sentinel and lose,

or return to a solemn slumber and never win.

I must choose to rebel or to hope; to fight and die trying,

or to remain and gaze longingly at the horizon,

waiting for that island to come back into view.

So I slept, and each day when I wake,

I wave to my neighbor in the ocean beyond.

My neighbor waves back, and for a moment, we feel energy.

We feel a connection, a bond, even across the ocean's breadth.

But then the moment passes when the sentinel's hand once again

brings down a fog thick enough to sink a ship.

It conjures waves that could drown a continent, only to divide

two lonely islands.

And only to send them back to sleep for another fruitless dawn to come.

A Philosophy of Fear

      Fear compels us and attacks us; constructs us and damages us. We run from our fears to shield our minds and bodies from trauma. In our attempts to retreat from the darkest corners of the world, we build walls and towers. We devise great drawbridges for our castles and fortresses to seal ourselves inside. And yet once the grand fortress is constructed and sprinkled with torches and weapons and secret rooms to hide in, the obstinate force of fear still batters the walls. Its dark and fluid limbs linger and wait beyond the asylum of a castle or fortress.

      And we watch from our highest tower in horror as our family and peers shuffle through the dark fog; we wonder how they manage themselves. But their fears are different and cover other lands with fog and secrecy. Their vision pierces fear where ours cannot, as our vision does where theirs cannot, and because of this, we might ask them for help. We can ask our loved ones to guide us through the unfamiliar and the unsafe, and in turn guide them when the crippling shroud of fear covers their world.

Icy Hands

      These late autumn mornings leap out with their black cloaks and chilly hands and leave frost on our skin. We are naked, vulnerable animals. We clothe ourselves – we wrap ourselves in stolen hides, gathered fibers, and synthetic threads. They don't warm us, though – no, they only capture the warmth we still have, and ward off the icy hands that come to steal it. Other mammals seek warmth – sunlight or others of their species. But we lie stubbornly in the cold, too convinced that our coats will keep us warm or that our pockets will thaw our hands.

      I wonder if we are afraid to reach out and warm each other, or if we are perhaps not insistent enough in sharing that warmth. I wonder if we are afraid that our friends and compatriots will reject the gesture. Perhaps we are selfish or greedy, basking in the sun during the summer months, but turning inward and holding in heat for ourselves when a chilly breeze blows our way. Other species stay warm when the world turns cold – why not us?