Whenever I’m asked what I think
about something, it doesn’t really
matter what it is, something in me
puts on its hard hat and grabs a
pickaxe, and sets off into the tunnels
of the self to mine for ore I’ll extract
precious memories from, that, like
the unexpected jewels of feeling at
one with all I haven’t realized yet,
will add a multifaceted sparkle of
clairvoyance, beauty, and value to
an otherwise drab and mundane life.

I’m like a fairytale, personified badger
who has a den complete with library and
kitchen, a badger who can speak English
better than I can, and who’s got kids
who put on their galoshes and finish their
homework before being allowed to
wander outside in the rain for grubs
of intuition they’d rather talk to all day
than eat.    

Strangely, I know I can always rely upon
fantasy to point me in the direction of
the real that lay beneath what’s perceived.

A moment ago, I imagined I was a badger
living beneath a tree stump wearing a tie,
and already this fantasy has migrated south
to this moment in my ordinary, apartment
bedroom where this introverted guy just
wants to know it’s okay to take care of
himself by staying inside all day, my nose
rooting words out of the coffee-scented air,
in a kind of play that, for the uninitiated
in reclusiveness, may come off as the
behavior of the stubbornly insecure,
or self-loathing, not the highly-sensitive,
multivalent, and, not complicated, but
deliciously complex soul living, not between,
but with both himself, and himself.