Psychonaut

image borrowed from bing

Psychonaut

“We are born, live, and die alone. Only through our love

and friendship can we create the illusion for a moment 

that we are not alone.”--Orson Welles

Forever I have felt as if I were suffocating,

that when surrounded by any gang

I became short-of-breath, light-headed,

livid with undiagnosed mundane retro-stresses

that like hungry lizards would chew at my innards.

My sad soul was just a prisoner

of both my bastard body

and my unyielding circumstances.

My psychic scars were unseen,

but sometimes in the moonlight

during those frequent sleepless nights

I could visualize in the mirror

angry patches of discolored cracked skin

that criss-crossed the ever pale contours

of my bareness.

A psychiatrist told me that clearly

since my sainted mother had perished

at my birth, I was struggling with survivor’s guilt,

that my misguided demonic conscience refused

to allow me to experience joy, homeostasis, or love;

the complete absence of love became

a sucking heart wound, 

that I did not believe

I could give it, or deserve it.

My unbalanced self image was a tar baby,

and any semblance of positive vibes

just melted away when in direct contact

with that corrosive black stickiness.

One day while thumbing through

some medical journal in another doctor’s 

waiting room, I came upon an article

on sensory deprivation tank therapy--

psuedo-science at best my right brain monkey

chattered, but I dialed that clinic’s phone number

regardless, and then dragged my resistance

through the sun-drenched doors of perception,

embarked on a passionate project worthy

of my complete attention, eager to close

the gap between angst and function.

They lowered me naked

several times into a blue pool

of warm salt water, letting me lie

weightless on my back, floating

gloriously with no tendency to

have to adjust my posture,

suspended wonderfully in the absolute center,

hardly aware of the gentle slow circulating

current that kept me there, preventing

me from experiencing the trauma

of bumping into, or even touching

walls.

At my insistence, on my third session,

they closed the lid, and as I heard

the clamps click, floating there

in my lightless soundproof pod,

I revisited the womb, reconnected

with the old voyager that had been

chained below decks for so long,

rediscovered the maternal love

that had been the vehicle for

my present incarnation, and finally

embraced the karmic sacrifice

my gracious mother had exercised

in order to launch me into lesson,

so that each time I emerge now

I do so with a full heart,

for I am grateful for the discovery

of my true loving self

that had waited patiently 

in the liquid.

Glenn Buttkus

January 2013

Posted over on dVerse Poets OLN

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