goldfish by shelley eastwick

drifting towards the edge of the murky canvass that they need,
my wisdom is too colourfully innocent for them to leave me free.
piercing my surface with their spears of hope and falsity,
their language reaches out to make me bleed instead of be.

and so I struggle forward like a goldfish in a storm,
screaming streams of questions like a child not yet born.

i mimic for the eye the tumbling, choking, downward spiral,
knowing that beyond this, possibility wears me like a smile.
drenching my senses with their waves of theory and industry,
they tell me that it is only my mental mirror that I see.

and so I struggle forward like a goldfish in a storm,
knowing that they cannot cage my ever-flowing form.

this equilibrium they are forcing fails to balance me,
for i know that this struggle is but a mask hiding the fears of the sea.
i have no inner turbulence.

no battle of me against me.
i just remind them of how sublime, and yet insignificant, we can be.

and so i struggle forward like a goldfish needing air,
but elsewhere i am merely washing goldfish from my hair.


Copyright © 2002 Shelley Eastwick 
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