Getting free.

A poem.

Hello friends. Open Heart Surgery is a newsletter devoted to exploring metamorphosis, unravelling, questioning and healing. I write essays and poems in service to personal and collective liberation - the personal, political, social, cultural and spiritual realms are all present here. This is a space for divergent thinking and open hearts.

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- 35mm film photo by moi, Aotearoa, 2021.

Getting free.

- July 14th, 2025.

- For the wanderers.

I listened to Mereba on repeat, 
hitting the high notes 
“Not trying to get by; I’m trying to get free”

And I tried to follow paths that were never carved,
that disappear as soon as you start
walking.

The lights are off.

I am alone;

not another spirit dwells here.

How do you trust in the dark?

I read the poets, 
the mystics,
who tell the truth, 
nothing but the truth,
and I vowed 
to do the same.

I carry only the flicker 
of a flame,
I walk barefoot 
into the wilderness,
with more fear than faith.
How does life look so easy for some?

I left the tiger’s den 
where I was raised,
I left the town.
I left the cage,
and walked alone 
off the highway.

I tried to get free.

I’m trying to get free.

But the thoughts that scream and rage
are not my own, 
this sick blood is inherited,
this body merely borrowed.
She is tired,
broken.

I walk and walk and walk alone,
praying to air,
making meaning of the night sky -

Is my Sagittarius in Jupiter 
the reason I wander, 
never calling anywhere home,

and the reason I write? 

The world is on fire, 
or it is beautiful,
or it is both. 

But I can’t tell which channel to tune into -
truth is a knife;
knowing, a kind of violence.

Delusion looks like peace -
I miss whatever ignorance
I used to possess.

I tried to get free.

I’m trying to get free.

But the hero’s arc doesn’t work
till the journey's complete.
The middle is just insanity.