the door in the wall

it's a different kind of knowing,
i told him,
the voice i use to ask questions in my own head.

how did i know?
have you ever been in love?
you can list out the reasons you are or aren't,
a million of them,
but the real knowing is looking up from your work and seeing truth with its feet up on your coffee table,
waiting patiently for you to notice it.

you can deny, bury, run,
put off for days or years or the rest of your life,
but I haven't found anything yet that can rewrite the moment you realize.
i don't like to waste energy trying to un-know.

now, to the point: i came to know last week that i had built myself a fortress.
an ivory tower.
stones of denial.
bars of steely regret.
one day at a time i had built it over years with no, not now, maybe tomorrow, when i'm ready, when this next thing is done, then we'll...

the grief almost knocked me down where i stood.
everything they did to me,
i learned to do to myself.
be in control.
never falter.
never for one moment let go of your own leash.
anger is a loss of control.
desire is a loss of control.
to survive, to be good, be nothing.
have no need.
leave no trace.

so curled up on my couch,
letting 30 years of pain leave my body,
what's left?
there aren't two wolves inside me,
just a frightened little boy and the piece of myself so starved it's become a monster.

what will i let out into the world,
peeling open the bones of my rib cage?
what death behind the rusty lock?
what life?

i am terrified.
there is a dark void past this gate,
and i can hear it waiting for me to choose.
i need someone to give me permission to live. or to forbid it.
because i fear whatever will i have of my own,
so atrophied, can't bear the weight of my self.
there has to be a way.
by which i mean: who will give me the solution? someone? anyone?
hah.

alone, which is just my illusion of separateness and safety,
built up like a great wall of ice.
'this time i will get past it' i thought to myself with each new love.
instead i mostly just hurt, and so did they.
the closer i get, the colder, the more distorted,
except that now there is an opening,
a beaded curtain swaying,
a melting and rushing that becomes a waterfall of light,
like a window or a mirror or the great groaning crash of an iceberg as it sloughs off a car-sized piece of its body into the ocean.
the tower, the wall, the cage, the door,
a thing can only be changed by being seen.

they are opening,
one by one:
the rusted iron vault,
the cage inside which is darkness and breath,
the white room with the gate into the garden,
and all the others i can feel start to shift against their frames as something wakes up in the stagnant air.

i was walking through the greenhouse the other evening and reached instinctively for the anger,
but my fingertips met only air.
i stopped walking, looking inward for the monster,
but all i found was the rusting metal skeleton of a place i used to be.