Focus on your breath

Out of sheer desperation I fled to a Buddhist Vipassana center in Thailand, only to realize I had run directly into myself.

I was going through a horrid year, and when the final straw broke, in absolute desperation, I booked a one week Vipassana (silent) retreat. Stationed about an hour and half away from Bangkok, it should’ve been slow paced and perfect. Except I soon realized that what I was running away from, I will be forced to face head-on in meditation for several hours a day. Haha! Just really not my season. These mundane images that I captured during my time there evoke a sense of suffocation, internal turmoil and stagnation of a mind trapped in its own inescapable silence.

Focus on your breath

Stuck inside 

A house of glass

Do fish come up for air?

Do they also feel like

There’s a hand grabbing them

By their neck?

Told to concentrate 

On my breath

Jarring daylight 

Oh why won’t you seep in?

Open spaces 

Or expansive cages?

A monk’s garb, 

But is he really free?

Still and stagnant 

Shadows cast by trees 

What’s this feeling 

Gnawing beneath my skin