Unlearning Gravity

I haven’t written poetry in a long time. But after dealing with some recent health issues and the toll they've taken emotionally, I found myself needing to say something, even if clumsily. Full disclosure: I know my poetic muscles are out of practice, and maybe this comes off as sentimental or forced. 

I shed the scaffolds, one by one,
the frames that taught me how to run.
Each rule, a rusted bone of doubt
I peeled them off and climbed without.

The sky was heavy, the ground unkind,
each step a war of heart and mind.
I sank so deep, the dark grew thin,
the world fell quiet, I fell within.

At the earth’s core, the pull was gone,
weight forgot which side it’s on.
In humming silence, and I could see
the only chain was memory.

Was this recklessness, or truth?

I learned to walk untethered, uncouth.
Floated free, past loss and name,
through the soft unmaking of my shame.

Now giving up feels close to art,
a stillness drawn from a broken parts.
No ground below, no fear to choose
when nothing’s left, there’s naught to lose.

I move like thought, I move like plea,
beyond the pull of what should be.

surrendered now to orbit’s grace

I rise, unbound, in lucid clarity,
If only I could unlearn gravity.