Delirium

I travel through a steep hallway
Adorned with gold
The walls liquefy at my touch

Through ripples
And between vignetted vines
I create an abandoned forest 

Weathered wooden posts 
Support the hallucinatory roof
Rapidly spouting exotic vines of every color 

A dark, mahogany door surrounded
By uncompromised chaos
Floats in the center of a grand maze. 

I turn the knob.
A dragon escapes the darkness.
And morphs into a dizzying snake
Falling further into the abyss. 

As quickly as my sight returns
My feet land on the same door
Curling to keep me
From the bright blue ocean below 

A man rows heavily behind me
Hundreds of other ships in tow.
Before us, ruined buildings and worried crowds
Await our arrival

My bare feet catch a splash from the thrust of his oar
Where my long white dress kisses my ankles
And it all disappears in a fragile moment 

In all the days that follow
I feel a pull, an urgency to return.
My new fixation is reckless, desperate.
This is not my world.

I clear my mind once again
Tuning Rachmaninoff softly in my ears.
A door must close to open the other. 

And then I am running.
Barefoot on a wet, cobblestone floor.
The same mahogany door swings open
Inhaling me in its vortex. 

The familiar world

I crash in a careless manner
Onto pebbles of black sand
Painfully imprinting my palms
And knees

My skin and dress are torn.
Broken planks of wood litter the ocean
A tall, harrowing cave hides an old woman
Rocking a baby close to her chest.

As I approach her, she silently reaches out to me
With quivering hands
Planting her infant in my arms. 
Her sunken, tethering eyes dig deep into mine
As she slowly slips into a deep, everlasting sleep.

The wind was cold
And desolate
And I continued on
Escaping through the remnants of war and destruction
When I was once again forced out of my vision.
The clap of a door closing loudly.

Back in my body, the pain and sorrow of thousands
Was still present.
The agony of my experience cut so deep
I feared more would wound me forever.
And so I never went back.