The Nothingness May 13, 2o16

I found a poem that was written back in 2o15. I was looking for something that spoke addressed the concept of  nothingness. I typed into word search the single word "nothing" and this popped up. I admit I was surprised to find it, and to be totally honest after I read it I wasn't sure it was one I had written. I mean, it sounded like me . . . but it felt like it was written by someone else. It's funny feeling to create something, set it aside for awhile, come back to it and then not recognize it as your work! But it is mine. No doubt now that it is mine, written by me. I reworked it a bit yesterday, not much. It didn't seem to need much.

The Nothingness

Extraordinary to see yourself outside your . . . self,

looking back into those eyes that you've never
really seen before. Counting each wrinkle on that
alien face, each scar that you never were aware of.
You look and you stare and you analyze and criticize
every nook, every cranny every blemish that time created.
There's a warmth gathering around that hole inside you
where nothing lives, where nothing feels more like home,
like all that you are is that nothingness and that nothingness
is real, it’s solid, more valid than anything they've told you,
and all your life they showed you what reality is supposed to be.
A bare existence that glares at you through that self you've
never known. You have never known. It feels like butterflies
fluttering around a burning bush, like the deepest end
of the deepest pool where panicky legs keep searching
for the bottom and find nothing more than . . . than . . .
and there's that word again . . . nothingness.
All there is, all there’ll ever be . . . nothingness.

Not even a splinter of a shadow left.

Woodie12-19-15 (rewrites o5-13-16)