Magic Carpet Ride (Poem)

It’s like all my life there was a rug beneath my feet.

And I didn’t realize it, but that rug was held up all precarious like a tight rope, strung between the two highest peaks circling the valley.

Nothing beneath it but miles and miles of empty air.

And on the day the world turned upside down, the rug was swept from beneath my feet.

I wanted to believe I was that little cartoon character from the 60s, you know, the roadrunner who would charge off a cliff’s edge and keep on going.

Just. running on nothing but faith on top of the air, like Jesus over water.

He’d only fall if he looked down.

They say faith can carry a man, and I wanted to believe I could walk on air. But when I looked down I had so far to fall. When I looked up I had so far to fly.

I wantee to believe that if I keep my head up and my eyes forward, the wolf behind me would falter and I’d just keep on sailing up into the atmosphere.

I want to go back home, and I believe I can. I’m just not sure how to get there. Yet.

I try to see it like this:

Maybe the rug was just a branch for the caterpillar. Maybe the world turning on its head was just the dizzying sensation of the cocoon wrapping round me.

Maybe from here on out I belong to the sky.