Diana Darby ** "I V" ** Intravenous

My Head

In this circle
there is no way out.
Just the tide pool
endlessly rounding,
never opening up.
Each road a dead end.
Each path a lie.
When the wind blows past
I scream, “take me.”
But it just goes on by.
I plot my escape
like a man on death row.
Which guard is the weakest?
Where is the key?
Which fence has the least barbed wire?
The morning is always the same.
The anxiety greets me first,
then the fear.
I run around like a chicken without my head,
searching,
searching
for what became of it.
It is not in my lover’s hands,
or my friends,
or my families.
Perhaps it has rolled under the dining room table.
Yes,
I’ll go look for it there.
My green eyes stare out at me
and a small voice says,
“kneel down.”
But I am scared to look.
I am scared to see myself.
What if I turn to stone
and am more paralyzed than I am now?
What if what I see is so ugly
that I never recover?
But I must look.
I lift up the dining room tablecloth
and there under the wooden legs
is my head.
To my surprise,
it is not so frightening.
It’s rather small and vulnerable.
“Come in.” it says.
I sit under the table and lower the cloth.
“Where have you been?”my head says,
“I’ve missed you.”
“I don’t know.” I say.
And I really don’t.
We sit like that for hours,
my head and I,
giggling
like a couple of schoolgirls.
Then I get up to leave.
“Come back again,” my head says.
I will.