When I, Sick of Self
by Shannon Blank
When I, sick of self, declined to eat or drink
lay down upon my bed
and instead proposed to think
commencing there to query
every bleary line and smeary
spread my thoughts about like ink.
And swimming in my inking
treading shallows staring blinking
I assumed that swim or sinking
I should meet him whom I fled.
But no angel came to fight me
though I fasted fierce and nightly
peering for the seen unseen and sightly
on the vanished path ahead.
Where I lay and while I writhed
many postures I contrived
petitions prayers positions tried
asking for a path ahead.
Heart and body dearly tried
neither bridegroom bed nor bride
suffered months and hours wide
before I fled to wine and bread.
Shannon Blank is a young woman reading and writing in the border foothills of West Virginia.
Photography by Kenneth Godoy