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Tag: #darkness
The year was 2005
The year was 2005
an explosion rocked
the quiet neighborhood
of my emotions
afterward, wiping debris off
seeing my reflection, a soot covered mask
I could not hear anything anymore
except the ringing of my heart
which beat far too fast
anxiety
got me
by the throat
and choked
the peace
out
like a burlap bag and lump of coal can still burn in snow
it took years to mend
like piecing a broken bowl with slim chain of gold
smoothing cracks that have become so used
to remaining fissures
and even then, a hair-line fracture exists
permitting a little light
disturbance
felt in darkness as you turn
trying to dream
when trauma
explodes bombs
in your quiet space
it’s not the sound you lose
but the belief that anything
will ever
be okay again
yet there is a lesson learned
in suffering we survive
in survival we know
next time
if there is a next time and there always is
we may lament and hurt
fall to our knees as debris rains down
but surely afterward, we will stand again
that is the enduring legacy
of survival
and even betrayal
and even death
does not contain enough
to outwit our yearning
to outfox the determining
steel hand of fate
slapping us down
we rise like Atlantic waves in August
will conjure wet inferno, juxtaposing
energies like herculean warriors
in great walls of dark water
hitting each other until there is nothing
but smooth glass remaining
and a fever tells us
it is over
for now
with wobbling legs we
survey the wreckage
of ourselves
realizing with pain comes
a long after-tow and if
you hang on long enough
the sun
breaks
through
low-lying
cloud
warming those
who believed themselves
expired
Superficial
Skim the stone on the surface
watch it butt against reflecting light
until falling through surface
out of sight it drops
to a darkness
or a peace
depending upon your vantage point
I for one would welcome
a life spent below, than above
listening to the mocking calls of unseasonal green parrots
filling trees with their envy
they make everything brighter it is true
yet something about the jarring
competitive nature of their plumage
strikes me as less sincere than
the drab and disliked pigeon with
old face and white circles around
his rumey blinking eyes
who can always be relied upon
to lose a toe in Winter
I think of how often I have watched
something curl to the side of a street
and wait to die
how a part of me felt helpless
inhabiting stages where stories
rent through armor and pierced
my conscience
after the third pigeon in a box
tucked beneath my office shoes
my boss told me
look, this is enough
he preferred I collected his shirts from the dry cleaner
bagfuls of shopping for his wife
my perk was
one day I could grow up to be like him
ignore dying birds in the street
driving silver BMW to my Thursday mistress
whilst another slave worked after-hours
filing life upward like blind builb
it came to me then, ungluing my eyelids
leaving behind one word
WRONG
written in magic marker on his desk
I took the cooing box I’d hidden
and the pigeon and I went home
to a cold flat with no furniture
where he proceeded to try not to die
and I watched understanding very well
the hue of his life
for I am a stone who sank before
she saw the sun and only the moon knows
the way to lift me up