"Epiphany"

April is usually celebrated as poetry month. It's in light of this that the Oakville Lit Café holds a poetry competition each April. I think this is the first time (since I started attending) I'll be in town for it. (I'm usually on vacation to celebrate my birthday.) So, I submitted my entry the other day. The entries will be judged by a panel - not the audience. Also, the poems should include three of the judges' given words - all starting with the letter 'E'. Out of the list of about 10 or so, I chose: epiphany, evanescent, and ethereal.

It'd be nice to win.

EPIPHANY

I hear the distance I travel

I feel the distance I fear

Spanning the height 

Between ground and endless sky

My feet are off the ground

And I am high.

This is neither flying

Nor soaring. An epiphany.

I'm being transported into

A vast nothingness

Losing all sense of context

And motion and time and space

I feel the distance increasing

I go up, up, and away.

Hands over ears

I melt inside

No tears

Can't cry if I can't feel

Now, can I?

Am I there yet?

No, higher yet.

Soon, I morph into a shadow

Of my former self

Looming evanescent

Still.

Nothing happens.

Suddenly

My thoughts are crystal clear.

This moving, my doing

This distance, my desire.

Is my fear of heights weaker 

Than my fear of loving you?

Than I fear being loved by you?

I was prepared to die flying

Than I was to die trying

At something new with you.

Something ethereal, yet true.

I don't have a fear of heights

I have a fear of falling

I have a fear of loving

And falling into you.

Update 2015-04-30: I won! :-)

Claudia

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