If you're a human being
You're going to have lots of feelings
Including on Tuesday
When you did not schedule the feelings
Or anything else
Untoward
Let alone clear the deck
Or batten down the hatches
Sometimes crises occur
Actual bone fide 24-karat crises
And those feelings are very strong
And almost immediately
The ego's mechanism whirs into action.
Its contribution: to build a dramatic narrative
On top of those feelings
And produce a second layer of feelings
Which stem from the drama
The purpose of the 'dramatic' feelings being
To avoid the 'crisis' feelings.
Everyone loves a good drama
That's why we go to the cinema
And engage in furore and kerfuffle
In palaver and intrigue
In shenanigans and to-dos
We can deal with the emotion
One stage removed
The eyewash
The fancy pantomime
What we can't deal with is the emotion
Head-on
But
If we don't deal with the emotion
Head on
We'll have to continue processing it second-hand
Over and over
In ever-degrading cycles.
Crises we cannot avoid
But dramas we can
So
Peel back the drama label
To reveal the prize
Ta-da!
What you're actually feeling
Which is loss
If you feel it
It will pass through
If you don't
You'll be stuck with it for ever
Gnawing at the windowsill
Howling down the chimney
Scratching at the skirting boards
In the night
Beneath the cowls
Behind the scowls
Behind the curtains
Over the horizon
Off the edge
Of the calendar's cliff
So open the hand
You're holding tight shut
And release the emptiness
You're avoiding
And as you open your hand
The universe will rush in
To fill it with itself