Beneath the Buzzing Brainstem

Beneath the Buzzing Brainstem

Jesse Keith Butler

Beneath the buzzing of my brainstem breathes
an unseen life—an inner light-source, pure
and pulsing as the seared shell of a star—
unblurred, blossoming, bellowing heat. Beneath

my surface stirring swells a silent ocean—
as subtle as the tide singing through a seashell—
unsounded, unfathomed breadth shoring this brittle
crust of consciousness from crumbling, from crushing

its own mass to sand. There’s so much I never see,
while I scamper after some new stimulus—
short-circuiting through the swirling shallows. Unless
my grip is loosened. Unless you lessen me—

and, for a moment of expansive quiet,
I feel the fist that holds my heart in its hollow
unclench, and acres of space come spilling through—
as my ribcage opens, like a flower to the light.

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Jesse Keith Butler
Poet & Public Servant

Jesse has been published in The Orchards Poetry Journal and Cloud Lake Literary

Photography by Arun Clarke