slope
when the lights around you pulsate
like blaring sirens screaming sounds of
self-deprecating soul-crunching
sanity-sucking spitfire insults
flashing lights like “don’t move” or
“don’t stay” or “don’t do” or maybe
“don’t say that which you want to say because
you are not worth even an ounce of grain” you need to
sit down and
calm down and
look to the skies because
there is a great deal of zooming to do, sitting in front of that
blue-light screen on google maps dot com letting your
scrolling do the trick until you’re small,
smaller,
smallest,
invisible with the white swirls and the blue oceans and the green land
and the skies and all of eternity, of outer space embracing you in
like a mother cradling her child, tucking them in
at night--
so will the world to you.
small does not mean
meaningless it means that the eternities stretching within you
are worth countless but the screams around you sound
so soft, so easy,
so conquerable when you stand
just a little ways off
as the sky and stars cradle you in
their arms when you sleep and whisper
that every steep slope is only a speck
from afar.