The Middle by Archana Vemulapalli

Somewhere in the middle

I slip and slide

Between horror and delight

What we have and have not

Can still become but mostly not

Meditations on remains and remainders

Gratitude and grief, dissatisfaction and relief

Alarmed at times, hadn’t it only just begun?

But no, that’s an aberration

Our pasts have pasts

On that tightrope we’re almost halfway done

Teetering, no option to retrace

Resigned we move forward, physically

Our thoughts take flight though roaming asunder

Logic, loathing, penitent

Wisdom, enlightenment then lament

Back and forth in our heads and hearts

Barely balanced as too long we cannot pause

Not all sunshine and roses, not quite all deep dark seas and sharks

But didn’t we climb steep hills to get here? Shouldn’t we be closer to a peak up top?

Isn’t the hard part done? Doesn’t it flatten out?

Deep disillusionments followed quickly by realizations - journeys have peaks and valleys and the terrains they all differ

We let that sink in and restore our semblance for now

Until this cycle repeats again

And we go up and down, in and out

And on And on