come to me, sweet and natural,

and i was just a boy – wanting to be

an adult.

i explored the world with rebellion,

for the expected seemed lifeless, boring,

banal: who’s keeping the good stuff?

found the old tadpole pond, filled

with croaks of many kinds – their green

leathery skin some bumpy, some smooth

but i liked their eyes most of all!

a tunnel loomed before me, as i hesitated

to enter and heard an urgent voice call out

come enter; a feral looking man with a rabid face

honking to bring me in, never talk to strangers

and so i fled.

later on that day i rehearsed the events,

found an owl whose piercing eyes

bore right through my soul – i too felt

the heightened sense of awareness, the night’s

cool sweat sweeping off my face

and i clenched my fist hard the next day

when my teacher found me dozing away.

to stand outside the classroom again,

to be lectured on the virtues of

confucius: which i knew not

for i found the idioms, the proverbs

to be long and utterly meaningless

so once again – more punitive measures

to my dismal spirit

as i tried to remember what the keen rabbit

told me just the other day

when it hopped through the dying fields

in search of a new home

deep within earth – where teachers do not get

to lecture!

that night it appeared my parents were particularly worried,

the usual – oh is he going to make it

when he is always this distracted, this unruly, this.

could not for the life of me understand

why the bumps, the hiccups, the sky turning like

the sun seemed to unfaze

learned adults who took everything that happens

as truth.

there is a kink in the armor,

a maelstrom in the making

and no one appears to be listening

save the rabbit, the owl and the frogs/toads.

the suction comes, water wheezes, coughs

into the thin corroded pipes,

then nothing. an empty sink filled with air

almost solid like. i breathed in solid fumes

that got trapped in my lungs.

it was liberating, it was fantastical

prana dissolved – i listened attentively

and became an empty sink.