It’s undeniable to me

that the sun rays will butter

the early morning skies -

a real blue that will

make me cry with joy.

Cotton breathed clouds

will dot my existence,

The midnight blue

evening skies

will sparkle with

sprinkled stars and

laughter, reaching

down to my soul,

rejuvenating me

with hope and passion.

The sea will roll in

on little foam feet,

tickling my fancy,

a constant rhythm

tangible and soothing.

Sand will fill

my toes

in sugary kisses.

Sleepy alligators

will slip back

into watery refuge

or sun on the banks

of my marsh canal.

Blue herons will gulp fish,

struggling valiantly

down their throats

in languid lumps.

There will be

thousands of white

butterflies announcing

virgin spring’s song,

orchestrated beauty,

with God as

their conductor.

Deer will wander

into my yard,

herding their young,

eating their dessert

of roses and hibiscus,

leaving my yard

stripped bare.

Prehistoric armadillos

will dig holes

in the rich earth

but they are in

no hurry to leave –

they’ve existed forever.

Moss draped oaks

will shade my

wanderings

as I ponder

the honesty

of my world.

This is my reality,

intrinsic to

all I am,

coloring my life

in its existence.

From the favelas 

of Rio to the 

empty stadia 

is already odd,

an Olympic stretch

of reality making 

civilisation's

defining moments

seem shallow fraud. 

Unreal, surreal,

a pedant's sigh,

a Monk's tale,

superilluminated

in shaded cloisters

for the literati

drinking 12 ounces tall

with sugared jellies

in coffee shops that

are rather lax about

third world issues

and paying tax. 

Thin gruel for

the starving

who save their

'first looks' and

reviews for 

empty bellies. 

Meanwhile the

'first world',

and, who can tell,

perhaps the last,

throws out food

and plays with fasts,

imagining itself

witty and engaging

while contenting itself

with navel gazing

and wittering on

about suffering and God. 

On the back streets

the thin faces 

would trade 

civilised conversation

and sport

for food and love

in those forgotten places

where reality

is written in 

mud and blood. 

That pain you get in your chest

When your heart breaks

That feeling in your stomach

When something isn't right

That pounding in your head

When you get sick of reality

The frog in your throat

When you have to speak

The sweat on your palms

When s/he is about to hold your hand

The waterfall down your face

When things start to no longer be okay

The warm in the hug

When someone special pulls you close

That softness

When your lips touch

The plastic saxophone covered with Sesame Street characters... Real

The small switch set on "off" while the saxophone came to life whenever it felt like... Not Real

The light fixture in my bedroom... Real

The attached ceiling fan... Real

The first night the fan didn't switch on with the light...Not Real

When the fan whirred to life with impeccable timing as the sax began playing its happy tune... Not Real

When my 3 year old son would happily babble from the bathtub to "The Lady"... Not Real

When he giggled in the kitchen at The Lady's scary face...Not Real

When he told me that she stood "behind you, Momma!" ...Not Real

The chill I got when he spoke to her... Not Real

The small vial labeled "Holy Water," $8.99 at the Christian bookstore... Not Real, probably tap water.

The online article about casting ghosts away... Not Real.  Just because it's on the internet doesn't mean it's true.

Sadie,  a sweet friend who agreed to "drive away the ghost" with me, though she was just indulging me... Real

Holding hands, anointing the first entrypoint with holy water, while my son held uncharacteristically still on the couch... Real

My voice, beginning the 23 Psalm, "The Lord is My Shepherd..."  Real

My child's voice, deeper than usual... Real

My child's voice, interrupting the prayer, "The Lady says GRRRRRR!"...  Not Real

The fear in Sadie's eyes as she urged me to "Pray faster!"...Real

My son never mentioned the Lady again...Real

Sometimes I am not real.

     I wake up, sun filtering through my window curtains, and I cannot convince myself I am a member of the universe. I cannot touch, I cannot feel, an intense blankness--white and ignorant rather than black and terrifying--billows inside my brain.

I cannot possibly be alive.

     News programs blare vaguely across the room, my alarm shrieks on my headboard, my arm reaches up to silence it, but this cannot be my reality.

    There are noises next door, in the hall, outside where people breathe the fresh air: they cling to lucidity, the privilege of normality they've been afforded.

     Someone in the stairwell is speaking to their mother on the phone and they are laughing.

I cannot be real. My lungs spasm too much, my body aches too much, my mind races too much, waking hurts too much for me to be real.

Real is knowing that, even though you may settle on the answer, you will forever be re-evaluating and enlarging the questions that fueled your seeking heart so that, in turn, the answer, whilst remaining the same, will continue to be magnified before your eyes.

Real is knowing that the truth will set you free and that once you can handle the truth you can handle anything.

Real is a reverse butterfly effect that looks back to a cascading symphony of infinite-everything.

Real is knowing that words are containers and they sometimes buckle under the weight of what they carry which is living and growing and dying and changing and doesn't always like to be contained.

Real is knowing that in a 'big-picture' world, every 'little-picture' counts and nobody else can paint yours. 

He told me that nothing is real

It is all about one’s own perception

Sometimes we see with our heart

Sometimes we see with our mind

Sometimes with our third eye

It´s all confusing but nothing is real

We have no REAL proof that this is reality

Maybe we are prisoners within the matrix

You and me!

© M.Withers/M.Strudwick . All rights reserved.

Both the name The EriduSerpent/EriduSerpent

and any written material is owned solely by the above named.

Permission granted for all written material to be shared but not for profit.

Printing or publishing is prohibited without seeking permission first from said owner.

Real is being the best in drama because your entire life has been one carefully scripted act. The moments when you are not putting on a show are so few that during those moments, you don't know who you are. Real is being able to twist your words, and use every advantage, because that's how you survived. 

Real is not inherently moral, kind, or heartwarming, but it can be these things. For me, real is staying up until the early am hours reading and writing poetry because it is one of the times when being scriptless makes perfect sense.

They always tell me to come back to reality, but I do not know what 'reality' is. Is it pain? is it anger? The feeling of waking up in the same world and doing the same thing day after day? I like my version of the world better. My world is ever changing. When I was a child it was filled with fairies and unicorns and magic. Now it is filled with endless possibilities and hopes and dreams. This world may be a dream in it self but it is 'real' to me and what everyone else calls reality, I do not want to be a part of. Reality is whatever you want it to be.

I know you'll think as you read this

She's such a silly little miss

But you did ask 'What is real?'

So listen close cause here's the deal

We could discuss dimensions and time

Focus in on the universal line

But let's zoom in a bit closer than that

To what you know right under your hat

What's real for me is different for you

Think about perception, desires and view

So many factors that get in the way

You say last week, I say yesterday

Which one is correct matters not at all

Memories can trick yes it does appall

What I see with my own eyes

Could be truth or it may be lies

Opinion doesn't state a fact

Like 'Wow, that man can really act!'

But is fact the same as what is real?

Well, that depends on how you feel.

.....

Reality is what you find

important in your life

Job, kids, mother

maybe it's your wife

Those things are what's real for you

But for me there's a different truth

.....

If you want reality,

look inside of you

If my words you care to heed

I'll give you a small clue

What do you have no doubt

you could never live without?

Whether it be family life

or jobs, careers and avoiding strife

Point of view is reality,

It's individuality

Now I think I've done my part

What's real for you is in your heart.