I Can Tell You Nothing- An Excerpt From This Bird's Gonna Fly Poem by Vincent S. Coster

I cannot even give an account of what it meant to be born.

To fall head first down the tubes inside my mother into an opening light of a world gone mad and getting worse.

Stupidly falling into the arms of the doctor, midwife, or whomever it was who caught me.

For years I talked about white coats and men with lights for eyes.

For years the dentist caused me to feel the worst sort of fear. It was sort of like I blamed him for the whole mess.

But not now.

Now I know that the blasé act of giving me life was down to my parents who haunt me now in memory.

They do.

I see their faces and I feel a strange sense that they too were dumped into this mess like I was. So who to blame?

Isn't it funny how we talk of white lights when dying? When in fact it is the primordial remembrance of the horror of being born, screaming into the light at the end of the tunnel...