If Only
by Odin Roark

Is breathing involuntary,
Even for those who spend their lives suffocated
By an unwillingness to breathe?

How timid the blade's thrust.

Cautious from where the storm's grip began,
Pondering whether lightning needs thunder,
Passion requires boredom's consent,
Feeling deserves armor plate defense.

Newborns sense such confusion,
This exercising of one's conditional breath,
Sensing identity is shackled,
Subject to big people’s programmed understanding,
Life’s open-ended existence made somehow undecipherable.

Yet…

This naiveté knows,
Feels,
Instinctively anticipates,
Growing up might be unviable,
After all…
Acquiescence takes over,
Accepting imprisoned adulthood as being without joy.

Better to be kept tethered like a kite,
Soaring controlled,
Led,
Fed,
Kept in air pockets of mediocrity,
Risking little loss,
Simple gain,
No disappointment.

Still…

There are those beings
Refusing to believe,
Entrapment is all there is.

These are the fortunate,
Believing there is light behind the clouds,
The yet discovered searing heat of the unknown,
Urging the eruptive awakening of pure rain,
To make moist warmth beneath our limbs
As we finally embrace our earth.

Reflection follows,
A honing of the unanswerable
Epiphanous moments slice upward,
Revealing directions to unfamiliar sunrises.

Eventually,
An exonerated deep breath
Fully releases our captivity,
A permission granted by self,
Where one’s feathery blade of courage embraces,
Needing never to cut,
Having finally penetrated the evasive stillness
Known as peace.

If Only.