The Never-Ending Days of Being Dead

It's like learning to swim,
being thrown in
the deep end,
no gentle slope,
just a long drop.
Until I hit the bottom,
or is it the top?

My senses merge,
I cannot tell
where light stops
and noise begins.
I search for patterns,
familiar shapes,
remembered sounds,
floating, lost
in a great sea of sensual experience.

I flail,
desperate to break free
from the maddening cacophony.
I let go of reason
and out of the storm
comes a rhythm,
a pulse that moves
like a heartbeat in the womb.
There is no separation
just wholeness,
I am everything
and everything is me.

I am the ocean,
spinning an illusion of colour
to match my mood.
A shoal of flickering sunlight
dancing on my
summer-blue eyes
or a static-grey sulk
ready to tear lightening from
a brooding sky.

I am the desert mountain,
my gnarled fingers
clawing upward,
cast in shadows that
reach across the rocks
and into the fissures and cracks,
the sores of time,
my scars,
my pain,
as deep as I am tall.

I am the dance on the dusty plains,
a whirling tip-toe skip
in gaudy colour,
shifting from one foot to the other.
I am the soft light in a sepia dawn
making hazy phantoms of dark shapes,
the tattered sail
on the long junk
as it slides up
to the market shore.
I am the pleasure in buying
from those who want a living
and no more.

I am the sprawl of the city,
the damp street
which reeks of destination
but wraps itself in
concentric knots
and leads you back
to where you began.
I am the advert
on the passing bus
because what you have
is not enough.

I am the sheer face of lights
that fakes the night sky
and aches with emptiness.
I am the ticket stub
you keep in your purse,
I am the hazy youthful face
that stares back at you from the past.
I am the perfect moment
you have in your head,
the one you will let go
in the never-ending days
of being dead.

Title taken from a line in Jim Crace's book 'Being Dead'