knowing I have to do this in order to return home
but oh, the birthing pains sear through me
my breath comes slow and ragged
as I discard analysts like shells in a nest, ‘cause no,
I can’t do anything more, now
but sit vacuously numb
numb to the possibility of returning to myself.

So I dive and bank away session after session
exhausted by the pursuers who follow
follow after faster and faster and I am weary
so weary of fleeing
and turn to face them beating the air wildly
my claws out to catch one soft breast before I die –
only there’s nothing there
but me and the flapping demons in my head, but then
 
during a grueling session, I grab some wattle
from the shrink – a little spit and a lot of tears –
and reach for the critic buried deep inside

lay its pinioned form next to me on the pyre
look it in the beady eye and remind it we are in this together
then a flash in my peripheral vision
and oh! the gleaming light consumes the pyre and I rise, yes
I blaze, blaze under the blue sky
rise with deep, long strokes, up to the brilliant sun
that twines its light with my little one
and love is reborn, I am reborn and there is hope.