Cosmic Shipwreck

Everything’s a blur

At first, as I squint and try to see,

And there’s a stabbing pain

That seems to come from everywhere.

I come into full awakeness

And see the shattered pieces,

And my pain is traded for confusion.

I survey the wreckage, trying to remember

Who I am, where I’ve been,

And what these pieces mean.

Someone laughs.

I slowly stand and

Survey the splintered wood,

The torn and tattered sail,

And the bits of treasure strewn about:

All mocking me because I cannot remember.

The captain smiles.

I’m gripped by agony and grasp a railing

To keep from falling to my knees.

I count the pieces of myself, although

I’m not sure how many I’m supposed to need.

10 fingers, 10 toes, 2 hands, 2 feet,

It feels alright to me.

I sift through jewels, and gems and gold,

Glittering as the fall through my hands.

I walk around what used to be the deck,

Cautiously stepping over beams

And avoiding rusty, crooked nails.

Looking for answers because

All I know about myself

Is that right now I’m on a ship,

Or at least what used to be.

The ocean sparkles to rival the treasure.

I know nothing of the life I had.

Only flashing glimpses invade my memory as I wander,

Lost

Amidst the shimmering shards

Of a life

The water is warm as it wraps around me.

A glimmer in the distance makes me turn my head

And I find a chest,

Over turned and empty,

With golden circles piled around.

The gold is heavy in my hand,

And it’s surface is rough

As if it used to have an image,

But whatever design it ever had is long gone by now.

There’s a face on the coin, comforting and familiar.

I’m half sick of shadows

Of a past I don’t remember.

Give me new life,

Or my old one;

I don’t want one foot in each.

I’m being embraced.

Supported.

Held.

I throw down the coin in anger

And crumple to the deck. It’s uncomfortable,

But I don’t care.

I don’t want these momentary glimpses

I just want to know why I’m here!

There’s something wet on my face and I realize that I’m

Crying.

The flood gates open

And I just weep.

The memory creeps in and I feel someone’s arms around me.

I can’t breathe.

I’m being smothered.

I need air!

I need to breathe!

“STOP CREEPING INTO MY HEAD!”

“YOU’RE NOT REAL!”

Silence.

In both my memory and my present.

And now I know I’m alone.

Until this moment, solitude was an idea,

a fear.

Now, I know it’s true. This is all

There is.

I’m here and the ship is here and

That’s it.

The captain is shouting at me earnestly.

These are not memories.

My flashbacks are merely imagination.

Whoever this captain man may have been,

He’s not,

And whatever I thought he could do for me,

He can’t,

because all he is

Is my loneliness incarnated.

I wander the ship,

Picking up pieces

Not caring what they are,

Just knowing that they’re real

I grab a soft robe of deep violet,

And am comforted that such lovely things as this exist.

I study more faceless golden coins,

Searching for the image I know must have been there.

I find a lovely, sweet liquid that burns my throat when I drink:

And I do,

Until I stumble, dizzy, into a corner

with a tattered blanket and a ragged mattress,

and pass out.

I wake up feeling worse,

Still half living in the nightmares that plagued me

All night long,

And I swear to never again touch that liquid,

No matter how sweet it tastes,

Or how much it makes me forget,

And I couldn’t if I wanted because I already drank it all.

Despite my vow to never drink it,

I’m angry that it’s gone,

And the only person I can think to yell at is

The captain.

I feel as though I lost my closest friend

When he was banished

From my head.

He’s too close to my heart to be

Simply invented by my head.

His world must be the one that’s real.

I just need to figure out

How to get there.

The image from the coin blows proudly in the breeze,

Suspended from the tallest point of the mast.

The visions have returned,

And I welcome them because they are

Real, and this ship is just a distorted shadow

Of the ship on which the captain sails.

For all I know, the captain doesn’t even have a ship;

The idea of a ship

Could be part of the distortion.

I look up at the flag which barely flutters,

Ashamed to be the representative of such a dejected vessel.

It’s the same flag from the dream,

But ripped and lacking image.

Everything on this shadowed ship is lacking image:

Lacking truth, beauty, and goodness,

Which is why I must join the captain,

Who is truth.

I see the whole ship:

Not a scratch on the woodwork,

or a spot on the sail.

It is at this moment that I realize how perfect that ship is.

I look all around where I’m standing

And I hate it

Because I see it as it really is:

Broken pieces that don’t fit back together.

There’s no longer any point

In trying to figure out where I am because I already know.

I am nowhere.

I see myself on the ship.

But it’s, not actually me:

It’s me if I were perfect.

I wander the ship in a fury,

Picking up things merely for the pleasure of throwing them

Against walls, and floors, against the wide expanse of the ocean.

I don’t even look at the items that slip through my fingers

And shatter.

In the end, I’m left with more pieces, but I don’t care.

Why should it matter how many pieces there are in an artificial world?

Everything on the ship is gorgeous,

Sparkling, soft.

Exactly what it should be.

There must be a way into that world.

But I realize how impossible this is.

If nothing in this world is good,

Or even real,

How can anything here get me there?

Someone from that world must come to take me there,

And the only person I know is there

Is the captain.

I realize that he is absent again.

He has been since I realized the reality of his world.

If he’s not there,

I don’t want to exist there

And I can’t exist there

Because he’s my way in,

And because without the captain,

It can’t be real at all.

The captain grabs my hand

And it seems to me that

We are the same.

I finally understand!

It is not here or there that is real.

They are the same.

Here is there.

I am there.

I am the captain

And the captain is me.

I am a part of everything around me.

I am everything. And everything is good.

I decide to rediscover the ship with my new eyes

Because, after all, I will be discovering

Myself.

I pick up the coins again and see

My face.

The flag proudly bears it as well.

It is wonderful to be the center of this universe;

Wonderful to be this universe.

I wander aimlessly, enjoying the connection I have to everything.

I decide to test it, wondering what powers I could have now that I’m connected to it all.

If it’s all a part of me, I should be able to manipulate reality.

Soon coins and jewels are dancing in a glittering circle

All around me.

I smile for the first time since I found myself here.

I hear a scream and the dazzling dance stops with a clatter of sparkling riches.

Someone else is on my ship.

Someone else is a part of me?

I go hunting for the screamer and am confused by a familiar sight:

Myself.

I am watching a moment I had almost forgotten:

The  agony.

I see myself holding onto the ship for dear life

And  my illusion

Is shattered.

I no longer know what is real and what is true,

But I know that this is not

Good

So I slump to the deck and try to work out what has happened.

I remember

The pain

That I convinced myself was imaginary,

The coins

Whose faces had no visage,

The liquid

That helped for the moment and then was gone, leaving more pain than it erased,

But most of all,

I remember the loneliness and the anger

And I remember who erased the abandonment

And calmed the fury.

The captain stands at the helm, steering.

I walk up and push him away,

Taking the wheel for myself.

And that’s when we hit the rocks.

And now I know.

I am meant to be on this ship,

But I am meant to live forever with the captain.

For now here,

 And later, in his home.

And He must always steer, because I will always crash.

“Captain!” I yell,

And he comes.

I run to him.

“Oh captain, my captain!”

I exclaim as I finally succumb to his embrace

And vow to never leave.

I no longer feel suffocated by his hold.

I just feel safe.

Knowing the truth has set me free because in this reality I must

Do nothing.

With this knowledge I sleep in peace for the first time since I took the wheel.

As I drift away I remember a thought I had in the midst of my confusion:

Without the captain, neither world is worth living in

Because he’s the only one who can rescue.

And someday, he’ll take me home.