Hovering Paralysis
by Odin Roark

How demanding this passenger,
hovering behind and around us,
train,
plane,
bus stop,
mountain trail,
makes no difference
to this pillager of spirit.

Patience remains… patient.

Paralysis knows subtlety, as well,
never standing out,
always in the wings,
seeking shoulder-to-shoulder seats,
standing room only,
fast lanes,
slow lanes,
no matter,
it knows all about
the many pole positions.

How stealthily
it hovers in silence,
its tectonic heat preparing,
enjoining aloneness
and its hidden pressures,
often without protection.

It knows…

Even as we struggle to remain aware,
cautious of our vulnerability,
hoping bondage will pass us by,
even as our scent of numbness,
lifeless air of stagnation
drifting from our defenses,
provides lure for the dreaded captor
inviting its weapon of choice,
fear.

How clever its strategy…

Bondage bent on tricking us
responding as it does
to our written pages of effort,
our often mere volumes of escape.

We resist…

Our inner sanctum
imploring we generate shackle-free expression,
keep affixing words,
embrace the mind’s lexicon of devotion
as it battles to stay ever ready,
worthy of acknowledgment.

Such is the commitment of greatest importance.

The marriage between a writer’s mind and heart,
that relationship inoculated against divorce,
the undeniable power of volitional passion
ready to rise through molten eruptions
to bear scars and open wounds,
all for the honor of creative survival.

For…

To succumb
is to shake hands with paralysis,
this most insipid and disguised
of all creativity’s dysfunctions.

To shirk responsibility of passion’s quest
this pause that invites the all-too-willing gatekeeper
lurking in the shadows,
its anxious keys clanging like girders in a hurricane,
ready to execute its most cherished weapon,
knowing it can defeat lethargy fueled with cowardice.

Suddenly…

The scribe within
bellows its habitual plea,
“You only have to do!
be truly who you are.”
will that simple honesty.

Paralyze the paralyzer.

It only takes acceptance
of who you are,
the perfect you,
the only you.

Determine to be.

Practice what and who you are,
for that simple honesty
wards off this predator
that would make you who you’re not.

Never forget…

Honesty is never without enemies.