ready, no, not yet

said the kid as the bike took on

three wheels

wobble,

wobble,

don’t shake, don’t rattle

the handle, the body leaning too far right;

face meets the road, yikes

as skin scratches the surface, red ink

writes on ground – i hate you.

then many years later, the teenager gets to see

all the shallow, all the holes in logic,

does not quite flow, steps into the

chaos, be tame, be angry, be sulky

but do not stop. for anything.

years layered over years,

skin becomes taut, eyes wary, ears sharp: that is not

quite how it actually happened,

the man testifies at court

when assailants throw their best crooked dice

to a judge, aye, aye it never ends

grumbles the courtroom hearing

every trick reenacted – different faces,

same spirt quite comfortable with a foreign body

like clothes worn, to be changed to suit

a temperament. don’t do this, a warning

and the word play rolls on

to glazed eyed spectators eager to go home.

then a turn around comes, just around a corner,

maybe

a mirage?

for quicksand is abundant, step on it gingerly

and lean back.

hard to do when panic is the first reaction,

fall flat on the face with skin torn, now the words

spit back fire.

don’t you learn?

but the wobble,

the leaning too far left – this time round,

quicksand drinks up the bike,

pieces of rubber, air, paint, iron, steel

gets puked out: and is of little comfort

to a grown man wearing yesterday’s memories.

try as he might, he may as well be trying

to life up the sky, what goes above that ceiling?

a universe made known, not his calling,

for a universe had already decided,

squelch that thought. and foot’s firm holding,

was simply on earth resting on nothing, spinning, my spinning mind,

a soul reaching out – what about me?

rest, rest,

said i, bits of, fragments of, pieces of thoughts, fantasies,

actions, display, passion erupting from earth’s core.

and i caught a glimpse of so many forms,

so much imagination, so much fury, so much denial,

i began choking, as the ephemeral dash past;

tried to catch that moment: a laughter, a chill, a shiver

and caught air, water into my throat. could not spit

out the foreign substance – my heart wrenched, quaked, pumped

touched ground held by nothing.

don’t panic, don’t lean in, don’t grab too

hard – on life. that’s the problem don’t you see?

the earth spits back an image,

the body receives a soul intact, suffers not the quicksand, the bike, the spinning

earth. i’ve arrived.