From the Bottom – Poem

Dim lights of the institutions.

The blaring ambulance.

The straight jacket strengthens with each stretch. A step.


Without a guiding light. My heart is on a line.

The tip of a pole vault. I launch my body forward,

Through fire, and traverse a jungle.


The leaves hold names. Suffocating and surrounding. Names like symbols, or smudges. 

It looks like dollar signs, or hands of a clock. Names like boxes, symbols that emit a stench. 

Smudges in bright colors to distract and taunt. 


A bridge connected us to this current world, but I have not seen its flimsy steps. 

Perfectionism unrest. Attempt to shed a tear in pouring rain. 

Attempt to save yourself, when the means of destruction, and production, are presented upon the stage.


Thanks for reading. ~Erickson