The path forks
I retreat
Into the vacuum
Of my whirring mind
Determined to polish my decision
To a high sheen of certainty
To imagine a future
So controlled
I can see my own face
Reflected in its surface
But the faster I spin
The more lost I become
In a black hole
Of my own creation
My core feels empty, expanding
(Was that once a bellybutton?)
To a fathomless void
Ready to swallow me whole
Then I remember
There is another choice
Instead of looking within
For answers
I turn my gaze outwards
For adventures
The risk of the unknown
Is somehow less terrifying
Than being alone
In my own sterile consciousness
The best decisions are experiments
In the laboratory of life
Note: This poem was inspired by a moment in a counselling session – where my counsellor observed I was withdrawing into a vacuum. This is a familiar, if unhelpful pattern. But by connecting, and trying to make decisions by doing rather than preempting, a whole new world of possibilities opens. I figured I could probably articulate the feeling better in a poem than in a blog post, but it’s nice to be able to remember its genesis.