It’s go, go, go. Full steam ahead,
and its feet to ground, find your pace,
bypass the fears and anxieties,
remember to breathe in and out…

And then it all just stops.
Doesn’t matter how good the plan,
how manageable the goal.
If you went in for scheduled maintenance,
or pumped yourself up for the next thing, next thing.

Next thing you know, you’ve stopped.
Neck stiff, feet frozen
but the pace kept by a racing heart,
staggered breathing completely even,
you become a full paradox of yourself.

You see your part, because you are a part
of a whole. A hole deepens
as perspective soars above
to see a distance, far too far
than you’re supposed to see.

It all feels fake, an endless play,
to see the wolves that eat and
lambs that lay at rest.
But you cannot.

You cannot rest or eat,
stuck in perpetual motion
far too aware of potentials and threats
to react to what lies in front.

Blind with eyes wide open,
mute but you’re still typing,
deaf while your ears are ringing,
all because you are frozen with blood that’s singing.

It will eventually fade, yet it still haunts
in dreams, on pages, cast out by familiar taunts
to come back home and ground yourself.
But sometimes the madness
just as suddenly stops.

The anchors I’ve dropped off are all varied,
pieces of self-care left unburied
but firmly tied to my roots
so that when I start to soar to far
they will drag me down by my boots.

It’s the writing left behind to be found
that tilts my view towards the ground.
The release of tension, remembering to breathe
doesn’t do as much, though now I ready the fall graciously.
There are the animals trampling underneath
either they love or love to eat me.

I cannot think of descent, instead I pad myself in patterns:
a book of fantasy to reign in a wild mind,
a soundtrack relentlessly playing on rewind,
an instrument flying back into hand
to soften the blow of wasting my time.

When the feet touch the ground my first sound is a sigh.
For to judge or curse myself will scatter the peace,
lead into another frenzy, keeping me to furiously alight
above the ground in impenetrable numb muteness
like a zombie queen coming back to life.

So thus I sigh, that’s why I stay soft
even when the world darkens and glares go cold.
I must maintain my own self warmth
to avoid springing another inlaid trap
just in case there is a trigger for the moments
when it all just stops.