Words can paint a picture of such richness, take me to a space of such bliss, sound like a symphony that touches my heartstrings. But words also confuse, fill my head with endless chatter, take me away from myself, sentencing me to a life of emptiness. Words can twist memories, distort experiences, make excuses, justify cruelty, create distance, maim and wound. So powerful, words can create war, their tongue an instrument as deadly as any bomb. At times I gasp in horror wondering was it really me who made that off comment? How I crave the sweetness of simple words

Beliefs holding on for grim death, opinions getting off on themselves, ideas strangling me in lines of complexity. Be gone. Be gone. Rusty shackles please unlock, eyes red and prickly, soften, look, ears, suspicious, open, listen, mouth too pursed, smile, kiss. Come back to me, my beloved lost little one. Dissolve into my arms, and be free of all that past.

Spirit sends so many signals; in the drumming of my heart, the smoke of my breath, the blood of my leg sticks, the cracking of my bones. But do I listen? Oh no. I want the instant fix, so fight a battle I cannot win. For it is spirit I must follow, or my life will become a hollow mental construct. Spirit’s winds signalling change, keep blowing, blowing, until lovingly I breathe them in and begin to unwind, slowly, slowly. I see how my mind’s resistance has protected and served me well. My resistance, honored, is going, going. I become

In the prison of my mind, I analyse and agonise, and reflect confusion. In the prism of my mind, I reflect the lines of light and gain illumination. Which shape my mind takes depends on who’s breathing me. If it’s my ego holding my breath to ransom, then I’m in prison with its bars my tight ribs. If it’s my clear observer, my breath’s full and deep and my mind is a prism sparkling clean.