What Happens When We Wake Up

What Happens When We Wake Up

Perhaps you have wondered 
how the inside of your head 
is somehow vaster than 
the actual universe,

how someone managed to squeeze 
the entire universe down to fit 
into your head 
and then snapped it closed.

Perhaps you have realized that
you are on fire, 
that you are also
cold cold cold
mostly empty
but inhabited by wonders.

Do you feel it now,
everything moving 
inside you?
Can you feel the stars
birthing,
galaxies forming?

Can you read the living 
star chart of your longing?
Can you fathom how large
this pool of light that is your body
stretches out and out
and out and out and out
and out and out and out and out and out and out and our and out and out and out.....

Do you know that your head contains 
the entire universe of flying things,
that your breath is 
an eternal exhalation of light
begetting light begetting light
begetting light?

Do you understand also
that you are 
the alpha 
and the omega,
that most of you
will remain 
uncharted
unexplored?

And yet,
so much is known--

each small pair of shoes
each scattering of feathers
each ocean unfurling
all the little amino acids endlessly floating
all the hot cores of the planets revolving
a hairy foot stepping onto the shore
a twisty pathway full of skittering toddlers
someone’s brightest idea locked down in a cell
each mother bandaging her nipples
each tiny monster scratching its head
a morsel or two of leftover bread
a small god with its hands over its face
a weird pair of wire clippers left on a table
a full bottle of cologne
the last umbrella lifting into the air
another sputtering engine
another banging fist
another painfully-extracted tooth
another plastic cooler with a heart inside
each rock hurtling through space
each yellow plate with royal blue trim 
each eye searching the horizon
some giant beast kneeling onto the grass
a determined virus reinventing itself 
so many bright red berries 
so many babies reaching up
so many old men playing chess in the park.

Can you feel the space inside you
churning with living things?
All its galaxies,
the spinning universes 
dancing outside of time?

Can you remember your 
minuscule parking space
inside this foreverness?

Can you recall each time you bumped into a wall
or climbed down from a high place,
each time your eyes swelled shut
all those times you hid in the bushes
all those times when you almost jumped but didn’t?

Can you remember each time 
you reached out but no one responded
each time you ate a ripe peach standing over the kitchen sink
every time you felt around in the dark for your glasses
every time you remembered remembering something you’d forgotten
each time you forgot something forever and never realized it?

Try now to recall every time you saw your breath hanging in the air
every time you went to bed hungry even though you didn’t need to
every time you clasped someone’s hands in your own
each time you got lost and found your own way home
each time someone pulled you out from under the table
every time you ended up right back where you started
every single time you got stinking drunk and looked up at the stars 
and felt the earth moving inside you.

And you knew that you were one with everything there is
and you tried to put it into words
so you wrote a poem
but the words weren’t right, 
you couldn’t capture how it felt
so you stumbled across the face of the deep
you spread your heart across the waters
you picked up a stone and sent it hurtling through space
you balled up the poem in your fist
and put it into your sloppy drunk mouth
and fell asleep.