In a Stroll, not a Run

It is an odd sort of tunnel, slightly tilted
as if auditioning for a Hitchcock film.
Etherial music, plays, like angels stuttering
as you move from gallery to gallery.

I go there often, to this museum.
and this tunnel, this place to place shaft
has become something of a destination,
a place to stay, out of kilter, yet by now, familiar.

I am not that hard to knock down.
Simply ply me with more emotion than I can handle
and habits take over as my heart and head
wrestle with all those feelings,

temporarily overwhelmed,
part of me wanting to run to the colors I understand,
like a child frightened in a nightmare.
Exactly like a child.

But now, I go to the tunnel.
Even the ghosts are familiar.
If it is not exactly a safe place,
it is a place I know I will survive.

Ghosts, it seems, get bored
when you are no longer scared.
They leave you to life on the other side,
in a stroll, not a run.

About this poem

A poem about my slowness in processing feelings. A mixed blessing and curse.

The picture is of a tunnel connecting two buildings at Mass MoCA. (The Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. The tunnel is as advertised. I have become very fond of it over the years.

Tom