There are times in life when synaesthesia becomes inescapable,
when water smells like lead and feels blue…
Anastasya Shepherd
Escape is possible.
Search the floor of your perception,
Feel for the hidden trapdoor,
The moment of synaesthesia.
Pry it open,
Heave it up on its rusty hinges.
Plunge into the blue.
Roll up, solid, dull,
Like a ball of lead.
Sink through the water,
Pass through the gradations
Of the shimmering light
Deepening into darkness,
As the shadows thicken.
Let go of all
That has been visible.
Feel the weight of the ocean
Press you to the bottom.
Smell your own fear.
Taste the bile of loss.
Rise, rise like an air bubble.
Push through the cool resistance
Until you are released,
Until you burst into nothingness.
Let the freedom of empty space
Flood your senses with joy.
You make choices.
Those choices make you.
Then you make choices.
Always a spiral – upwards or downwards – it's your choice.
Anastasya Shepherd
Having circumnavigated our world,
I realize that it is not a sphere,
But a spiral.
I am back where I started from.
The path ahead is as unknown
As it was before the journey.
But you, my friend,
Who steadfastly stayed here
At the origin,
How did you find out?
Or was it clear?
Was it clear all along?
Circling the pulsing center of their universe
The fish are passing through sunlight and shadow.
Their existence is framed, circumscribed, and protected
By the carved marble rim of the fountain’s basin.
Do they fear or worship the hand that feeds them,
Removes their dead, repairs the stonework;
The hand that brought their ancestors here
From another world in a wooden bucket?
Can they see that the hand moves more slowly now,
That the bony fingers have grown stiff with age?
Now, as a human life in this room
Is ebbing,
The attitudes of the objects
Become apparent.
The rocking chair
Stretches forth its arm-rests,
Ready to embrace, to lull,
To enthrall with the stories
Of a long life-time.
The mirror turns a blind eye
To all that is happening here,
Gazing intently
Into its own distant dreams.
The hospital bed knows
That it is seen as ugly,
Unwanted in every room that it enters.
Yet it goes about its work
Reliably and with care,
Keeping the patient
As comfortable as it is able.
It does its best to be unobtrusive.
The edge of the crystal vase
Glitters hard in the corner.
Being confined to a sick-room,
Enduring the dusty monotony
Of pathetic fake flowers —
This is not what it’s made for!
The curtains hold back the darkness,
Soften the mid-day light.
Catching the slightest motion of the air,
They stir like wings,
Like the white sails of a ship,
Sensing the wind, the space
Of a great invisible world.
The Earth falls towards the Sun.
There are no elephants, no turtles,
No hand of Providence
For the world to rest on.
What keeps the planet in orbit
Is its unwavering observance
Of “the laws of nature”.
But what is inside those words?
Dead force?
A command backed by fear?
A solemn promise given long ago?
Or a bitter-sweet journey
On a freely chosen path?
