I’m not woke
And I’m not deep;
The more woke you become,
The deeper you fall asleep

The deeper you dive down,
The closer the ocean floor –
But once you hit rock bottom
You have to dig towards the core

You scrape away past tectonic plates
But every scratch exacerbates
The itch that splinters in your brain:
Are deep and shallow one and the same?

The surface is now as far away
As your depths, so desperately deep
And being woke is tiring AF
So fatigue calls you home to sleep

Two extremes, one coin, two-faced
Spins endlessly, with no end to the race
No one ever comes first place
Cause there’s always another tale to chase

If you go deep enough into the mountains
You’ll soon come out the other side:
Wherever you go, there you are –
Stop running from your blushing bride

Based upon the Book of Five Rings, Wind Scroll,
Schools that Distinguish Depth and Surface

© Rylan Skelly, December 2018

About the Author: I have a B.A. in Honours Religious Studies from the University of Waterloo; I have a love for all major world religions – Eastern, Western, or in between; I’m genderqueer, and I’m comfortable with male, neutral, and female pronouns; I’m married to my dear wife Lynn, who is the love of my life, my best friend, and my muse; I think far too much, and often have too many ideas to know what to do with; and I am a doing being, just like you!

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