"Camera I"

Quickly, now
Before I forget
Before the cold rain washes this soot from my body
I need to remember
It kills me to remember

Was it real?
True? Honest?
Real, even so
So real in so many ways
It's not your reality that stains me

I slid through a slime covered door
Wiggled in through the mirror
Unsure of what I would find there
I thought I could handle it
This cliff edge

I was in an unfamiliar room
Taking in all I could see
My eyes like camera lenses
Strategically placed on the floor
Bound to the spot like tethered dead weight

I could have stopped it
I could have
I could have stopped it
I could have
I could have stopped it from tainting my soul

I could not have stopped it
From happening
As it
Had
Already happened

And so it happened
Real for them
Real for me
Real to the world
On every level a fucked up reality

And it chipped away
It tore chunks from part of me
Demolished a part of me
That I didn't even know was still there
That I would have kept to my dying day

Powerless to stop
Only stare
Judged guilty
By an unwillingness
To turn away

To turn away
Not so hard to do
Close my eyes
Squeeze them shut
Tightly, tightly

Only to be consumed by
The sound, the noise
The muscle and skin-muffled bone
Absorbing the shock
Of a wooden floor

Like a fish out of water
Flipping and flopping
Held down by the bigger fish
Gasping for water
Teased, destroyed then released

Puncture my ear drums
I cannot stand these
Terror, helplessness, anger, loss
I cry for you
I cry with you

But I cannot cry for myself
Tears won't fall from these open eyes
I cannot squelch
The echoing memory of your brokenness
That resounds and repeats and courses through my heart

Through my very existence
Changed forever
By an impulse
To
See

---

"Upon Waking"

Then one day he woke up
...and the realization hit him like a bolt of lightning into the darkness
He had forgotten
The sound of the wind
The coolness of a gentle breeze
Against his skin
From the south, blowing through his hair
From the north, chilling his bones
How the Spirit is ushered by the east wind
Spirited away by the west
All these things he had forgotten
And more
The wonder of the stars and their unique placement in the sky
"Holes in the floor of heaven"
His grandmother used to call them.
Lately he'd come to believe
That she was a liar
How far away, how far
The face of the moon, smiling down or frowning
Depending on why he was looking at it
On that day
As he lay
Face buried in his pillow
He finally understood how low
He'd sunk
Into a cauldron of apathy
How easily he had snuffed out the light
How painless it turned out to be
In the numbing of his compassion
He felt as if there had never been much compassion there in the first place
His belief, his desire, his faith, his innocence, his wonder
It had all moved out of his heart
And into his head
Where, co-mingled with fear,
Stagnation completed it's hard labor
Of hardening his heart
Turning it from flesh to stone
Or maybe diamond to glass
It plucked the lotus petal
Tossed it into a muddy pool of quicksand
He woke up that morning and it all came crashing in
Like coming out of a bad dream
As it was
So he closed his eyes again
Welcomed another realization
He was granted a wish for more sleep
And when he woke up from that slumber
He wrapped his arms around the moment
He held it like it was a long lost daughter
Or a prodigal son
He paid the closest attention
To each beat of his pumping heart
And knew that it was not blood that flowed through it's chambers
But life
And the love of God was the engine that kept it going
Life, love, ever dying, ever glowing, ever re-creating
He turned his attention to his breathing
And marveled at the will with which
He filled his lungs with air
How the inhaling felt like a re-filling
How the exhaling felt like a giving-back
A catharsis that he had taken for granted
For so long
Now he was overcome with gratitude
For the Mechanism that made this miracle possible
This time he realized
That the moment
Is smaller than a single atom
That it comes and goes at a rate that cannot be measured
The speed of light times infinity
But enlightenment only comes
When the moment is realized
When it is caught
When it is seen
Then freed
On that windy morning in early November
He woke up from a dream
That lasted for centuries
And yet,
He had only been asleep for a moment