i Am revisiting the significance of this poem — first published on my former Tumblr site [kimtn.tumblr.com] in August 2012 and one of the first poems i ever composed

this poem is derived from my near-drowning and out-of-body experience [OBE] when i was about three years old at a beach near Waukegan, Illinois while under the brief watch of my Finnish-American paternal grandmother, Dolores “Babe” Laine (shortened from Kumpulainen) who was often drunk

i am actually lucky that this near-drowning happened to me — and at such a tender age; my out-of-body experience imprinted on me and left me with the capacity to be open to, recognize and receive other metaphysical and liminal experiences throughout my life, and is absolutely part of the origin story for The Limineen and its previous incarnation as the “Accidental Seeker & Intentional Opiner”

---

beach obe

I open my eyes and ochre water’s all around

I’m underneath, but I’m not scared,

I still see golden sunlight too

I see your legs; you’ve let me go

and I think I’m down here all alone

I hear voices, but I can’t breathe

So I leave, I’m off to explore

But wait, there’s me! – that’s my face!

Can you see, that somehow now, there’s two of me?!

you finally see — the first me
you slowly raise her up

She coughs and breathes;

and the other me, She goes, She floats away

But, which one Am i?

now, i’m not sure

Am i real, or was it She?

---

---