The Jump Of Manuelito Poem by RIC BASTASA

What is it inside you,
Must be boiling
Could be erupting
A hollow bag filled with
So much pressure
About to burst

They wonder why
The decision to jump is made
By you at the unexpected hour
When all the rest are sick
Looking for the cure
When most are lost
Looking for an opening

And there you are
Not minding, undefining
What loss is
What pain is?
What everything
In our common ills
Is all about?

I am petrified.

Matter of fact
I stopped asking.

It is your major jump
And there must be a major reason
It must be the thin line
Between life and death
It must be feeling
The great divide

What we see is a major loss.

But who knows
It is not to you

I remember when you first
Looked for an opening
You insisted
You struggled
Only to find out
You don’t need it
After all those years

It is
The situation actually
Getting, needing, wanting,
Then throwing everything
Perhaps just
Going back to beginnings
To start after a backtrack

To be new again
The want to be at a blank wall
Or at
Dead ends
The mind would be
And could be
Once again
And we become
Real?

Disrobed of all the coatings
We accumulated
Now naked, now new
Now facing everything as though
Everything is strange
From mere scratch….
To a quick snatch
I can’t possibly do
What you have done
So far
It is not as simple
As you think
I for years
have taken
Complexity
Preferring the certainty
More than
The real
It is
what makes me
Live some more
And what is
it
I can’t tell you I
won’t really
It is my own
Sphinx…