Old Patterns

Do not give me a mountain on which to place my ambitions
Do not even give me a pedestal
They are much too close to the surface.
Show me the bottom of the sea
because that’s how far down I’ll have to go to reach them.
I’ll need a whale to swallow me whole first
just not for the reason you think.

Do not give me a crusader's sword to assassinate my heroes with.
I can kill my angels with my demons
but the blood I always end up spilling is my own.
I am both enemy and a martyr.
I knock down my heroes with my fists
because I am afraid the whale will die on the way down
and I will have to leave the warmth of its belly
to grab whatever it is I dropped.

My dreams are on an altar.
I stand
I kneel
I worship
but I can never touch for fear of desecration.
The most imperfect things are the most sacred.
You don’t want to hurt them any more than they are.

Build me a casket for my ambitions
but leave it open
and seal it in a cave by the ocean.
Check again in three days and look to the water.
You will see me walk to the middle of the sea
carrying loaves of bread against my chest
The bread becomes yellow and red fish
who eagerly slip from my arms and find their home beneath my feet.
They will swim deeper as I watch
and I will reach for them too late.
A whale calls to me.
I almost listen.