WESTWARD for three days i drove westward into the sunset until the land faded and my body became small before massive drowning waves craving death i abandoned my shoes and walked into an unrolling carpet of surf pushing me eastward pulling me westward am i still breathing? far to the southwest a tiny sailing sloop overtaken by storm clouds comes about i turned away and walked north watching my feet sink in the sand the surf above and the sand below cleansing my feet my shadow slowly lengthening eastward melting into the early darkness of sunset afterglow it was by moonlight then that i came upon a strange rickety bridge impossibly it extended from shore westward past the horizon of my vision obscured by the breakers' mists a hovering sinuous serpent rising, falling, shaking dancing with the darkened ocean doubting myself i turned away and impossibly you were there with me relieved i asked you why is there a bridge here? you sighed glancing left as your hand gently traced a gaping hole in the center of your chest chains of spittle fell from your mouth as you spat at me only fools believe in bridges over oceans recoiling aloneness welled in my eyes a black stone rolled onto my chest and defiance burned me forehead to feet to fists i turned away following my fear forward heart fluttering breath quivering tasting the carnal finality of choice i stepped onto the bridge my body rising, falling, swaying with the bridge's rhythm the ocean's rhythm and the wind whispered to me why? it was then i finally wept long pulls of breath and sobs and tears pools of death raining me down to my knees head bowed shaking because i did not know i cried out to the emptiness i don't know why? after a long time when there was no answer i stood again i walked westward without you
Artwork: “Ephemeral Bridge”, Lee Does AI, 2022 (source)
+ Contemplations
+ What happens when we are unwilling to go westward?
What inside us hold us from going westward?
+ When others attempt to control us, is the only solution to leave?
Why do others not see the bridge?
Why do others seem to naturally want to impede our progress westward by attempting to subtlety (or not so subtlety) control us?
Can imagining, embodying and emotionally processing leaving be enough to restore the detachment needed to better choose how to respond?
Is freedom only a material state of being or is it also a mental state of being?
+ What is on the other side of the westward bridge?
When contemplating whether to cross the westward bridge, why is it so difficult to imagine the beautiful dawn that will be seen looking back eastward from the far western shore?
Photo: “New Dawn”, Timboslice, 2023 (source)
+ Quotations
“This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.”
~ Shakespeare (spoken by Polonius to Laertes in the play Hamlet)
“You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.”
~ Friedrich Nietzsche
“No one can build you the bridge on which you, and only you, must cross the river of life. There may be countless trails and bridges and demigods who would gladly carry you across; but only at the price of pawning and forgoing yourself. There is one path in the world that none can walk but you. Where does it lead? Don’t ask, walk!”
~ Friedrich Nietzsche
“It is very easy to conform to what your society or your parents and teachers tell you. That is a safe and easy way of existing; but that is not living…To live is to find out for yourself what is true.”
~ Jiddu Krishnamurti
“Only the truth of who you are, if realized, will set you free.”
~ Eckhart Tolle
“This life is mine alone. So I have stopped asking people for directions to places they have never been.”
~ Glennon Doyle
“To be nobody-but-yourself — in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else — means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight.”
~ E.E. Cummings
“The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.”
~ C.G. Jung
