You should long for the truth like a drowning man longs for air.
—Amma
Laying face down in a puddle,
a woman might think
she is drowning.
She could, in fact,
drown, though anyone
around her can see
all she need do
is roll over.
How many puddles
have we lain in,
lips to the pavement,
eyes closed, feeling
the million points
of panic rising in our lungs,
shrugging off the hands
that would help us,
caught in the drama
of our own doom,
flailing, thrashing.
drowning.
What saves us,
even if we manage
to roll onto our backs,
is never ourselves
but the air rushing in
to fill us, the air rushing in
as if it longs for us
the way we long for it.
i love how you take the epigraph and turn it on its head. how game-changing to see that truth hungers for us just air hungers for our lungs. now i know what that thunderclap i heard last night was: this insight striking you.
It was like a thunderclap, only very, very quiet
It’s funny to think of laying face down in a puddle as a literal thing, which you suggest in the opening. A reality check on a philosophical conundrum. But that second stanza really turns it back toward metaphor with the panic so emotionally real.