Forgotten Ground Regained

Beneath the Buzzing of My Brainstem

Beneath the buzzing of my brainstem breathesan unseen life—an inner light-source, pureand 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 brittlecrust 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. Unlessmy grip is loosened. Unless you lessen me—
and, for a moment of expansive quiet,I feel the fist that holds my heart in its hollowunclench, and unspanned space comes spilling through—as my ribcage opens, like a flower to the light.
Copyright © Jesse Keith Butler, 2023
First published in Ekstasis Magazine, Issue 9. Reprinted in Forgotten Ground Regained: A Quarterly Journal of Alliterative Verse, New Series, Issue 6, Spring, 2025
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