this last year 
i cannot deny that
something very profound 
happened to me
a gradual and relentless
dissolving
of dualistic clutching.

it has been coming
for a long time
but this year
it has overwhelmed me
and demanded everything

i’m not trying to claim
enlightenment
but i am saying
this unstoppable
opening
has destroyed
the false notions
i have carried
and thrown me
deeper and deeper 
into the fire
of transcendence.

it hasn’t always been pretty
and certainly not nice
at times it has been ecstatic
and i have been like a man awake
surrounded by dreamers
and then i have been dragged
back into suffering
sometimes because of my own body pain
sometimes because of some old fear
of the future.

but it just never stops
i don’t even know whether 
i want it
but even that doesn’t matter
once the door
of awakening is open
it is incredibly hard to shut it again 
and i cannot.

so, like a moth to the
flame, i fly endlessly 
toward my own destruction
a somewhat reluctant
wanderer
who came unglued
from himself
and found
freedom. 

truth costs everything
and you have no
bargaining power.