a poem in prose

So, I was looking through some papers and found something I wrote about two-and-a-half decades ago. Since I am still not 100%, despite pulling off a 20 KM hike with the boy yesterday, for your reading pleasure, my arrogant youth. (unedited)

A View Outward To Appreciate What is Inside

a poem in prose

I walk on a very high, narrow wall that has gaping spaces in its top.This wall is studded with glass and jagged edges on the top and on its sides. On either side is an eternal depth, one the antithesis to the other. Both are what I am, or more accurately, could be and eventually will become. I cannot be both, but I cannot consciously choose. I can accidentally fall, or subconsciously jump, onto one of the two sides. I could even get a "helping" hand to push me into one or the other, but I cannot tell it which. If I enter one of them, the only way to get back onto the wall or reach the other side, is to climb the jaggedly studded wall and risk impalement or a minimum of many severe lacerations to my inner body. My other alternatives are to find one of the ends and go around or the bottom and dig my way under to the other side. Alas, the wall is endless in all directions from the top. I cannot go through the wall, for it may be as thin as thin can be, but it is much too thick to break through, even with the sharpest pickaxe or the most powerful explosion as well. I cannot go through any of the gaps, for they are coated with the broken glass; therefore I cannot grasp any place to pull myself through. If, when walking on the wall, I fall into one of the gaps, I am dead. I will fall down the gap until suddenly, it narrows to such an extent that it halts my body and crushes it. Accidental unbias is not allowed, it must be fought for. To walk the top of my wall, I must endure the jagged surface in every step, for there is not a smooth space large enough to walk on or stand in. As I perform my rituals to walk the wall, I am not allowed to reveal what I endure. The consequences would be collapse of the wall and I would tumble downward to reach the bottom before the ruins, defying gravity, to be buried by my own hand. This is not hard to do really, except that my feet are bare, my vision blurred, my muscles weak, and my soul aflame. That is where the difficulty arises. I walk this wall, for I am reckless. I do not perceive what I would desire to be; which side of the wall to be on, or to walk on my wall of false impartiality. One side of the wall is dexter, social acceptance, contemporary false reality; the other, sinister, the darkest evil, villainy, recklessness, carnage. I do not choose because I cannot envision where the true challenge and adventure lie. However, on the other side of the token (a wooden nickel perhaps? -- perhaps.), it is quite a challenge and internal adventure to walk on my wall.

Pee-yew!