Sometimes you hug the snake
Spewing... it needs to be done from time to time.
I think sometimes I've made a poor choice about the path, but aimed for the right part of the forest. I went stumbling in through a brier patch to make it where I wished to tread. Those trampled grasses, not quite a "road" yet, just a mere footpath, winding in a great series of "S" shapes, like snakes or rivers, leading on a long back and forth path up the hill. Yes, so much easier to climb, but my temptation is to hop off the pathway and head straight for the horizon with all its golden light and downy ferns.
And I think that's what I did... I went headfirst off the winding path and tread straight toward the summit, only to find the thorns and valleys of mistakes and troubles and worries and self-destruction. "Forward!" I cried to myself, "onward!" I would herald. And the briers tore at my thin skin, the membranes of emotional safety that had been erected about my psyche were tattered and shredded on the harsh rocks and broken things I'd left for myself beside the path.
A bottle which once held a horrid beast inside was shattered, but its pieces were there with me, in the brier, cutting deep wounds into my palms as I fell. The thorns of lost moments and failed chances were prickling my face, my lips, my arms and body... the chasm of self-doubt, the valley of self-loathing, their shards of shale and pools of inky murk threatened to flay my flesh, then suffocate and drown me.
And here, where I thought the summit was, is just more roadway - you're there and so is another and another and it was just too soon to get to that part of the road. It hurts so badly, and I wonder if maybe I added some broken things to my journey because of the rush. I picked up this snake in the underbrush and it's been biting me while I try to embrace it. The poison is beginning to make my legs feel heavy.
I could have walked around these troubles and pains, on the path, healing them and the magic of that special sorcery of right action would have let them be dried up, ground to powder and withered into harmless twigs, but I didn't take the time, have the patience with myself, to allow such time to pass. So I careened, headlong, into the brambles and the junk and the mire, only to find it far more painful and harder to climb through than the path itself would have been. How could it be otherwise?
And now I'm wondering if I've really saved any time at all. Was it the right choice? If I had the chance to go back and try again, I don't know if I would make the same choice now. I cannot be certain anymore. At least I'm certain that my goal is right, but it's cold comfort when having to repair all the damages and nurse the wounds of such near-reckless growth.
Someone help me back to the roadway... my brambles are getting weaved into my clothing.