A POEM: REACHING SELF-AWARENESS

                                      REACHING SELF-AWARENESS

                                     Climbing the spiral staircase of thought,
                                     hoping to reach a destination sought,
                                     of self-awareness that has thus far
                                     been cloaked in flashes from a past,
                                     long forgotten over the years;

                                    Time spent living in contradiction,
                                    heart covered by the mantle of distress
                                    repressed desires fluttering and forming
                                    visions in the mind, as eyes covet
                                    what they see in the darkness,

                                    Desires blossom in the minds’ eye
                                    making for uncontrolled passions
                                    boiling up inside creating deimatic
                                    behaviors, a form of defense;
                                    hard as they try to erase them,

                                   Those visions cling with the tentacles
                                   of the blue-ringed octopus, often being
                                   just as venomous, never letting go,
                                   in the attempt to drag the spirit back
                                   down to the agony below,

                                   Held there with a paralyzing secretion,
                                   surrendering, momentarily, to the poisonous
                                   grip eliminating the struggle to continue
                                   their ascent, submitting against their will,
                                   yet, still lashing out inside

                                   Wanting to be set free of the obstacles
                                   directed at them, their goal being to rise
                                   above it all, reaching for the light,
                                   in order to find the person of intent;
                                   besieged in the self-imposed deeds

                                  Of domination and control; in the end,
                                  somewhere from within, potency
                                  of existence is reborn again, propelling
                                  them to their triumphant win, rewarded
                                  for never giving in to the skirmish
                                  in the search for self-awarenss

                                      © Connie Jordan
                                       2015