The Wall

Why am I left here standing while my friends crumble to their knees?
It’s not that I do not know the shadows or the wind
Fogs roll around me but my skin does not absorb their toxin
Instead I look to the water’s edge
See obscured, grimaced forms of once familiar faces
And try as I might I can’t wipe away the spray
And friendly hands turn to mist in my grip
I can only see the pain
Caused by this plague of corrosive mind and boiling blood
Feel the burn on the barest tips of my fingers
Never better have I understood the sensation of standing before a burning bush
Only now it’s my friends on fire

I stand behind a wall of Light
Uncertain of why I’ve been chosen to fight
From this side
All I can do is offer a flat palm
Let my presence be known
Spotlighted and empty handed like so many before me
In my dreams did I whisper send me?

A calm history
Attempted empathy
The curse of seeing clearly
While the earth and its creatures shatter around me
I am the one to know best how poorly
I’ve handled this
When I should be the most equipped
If only the Light could help me see
Through the wall of water that separates me
I could give my hand and pull out
Pharaoh’s armies from the sea

Composed 12/30/18

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Withheld

Composed 5/11/16
Description: For Day 6, in which we are to talk about “screens” while using enjambment. I’ve actually written about screens before, as it was the word prompt of the day awhile back, so I had to get a little creative with this one. It became more deep than I anticipated, but I like it.

I only look out behind the screen
Outside I see reality
But shadowed lines scar my face
Obscure a view to that wide, bright place
Even a picture of that realm
Is marred by the screen in which I’m held
I long to toast within the sun
But the screen’s a cell that’s up and hung
It will not budge though I try
So I watch behind the screen
And cry

We Forget

Composed 3/3/14
Description: Do you ever hear anything, and it just hits you? Recently I’ve been hearing a lot of bad news, several rumors, and it just made me remember how little we really know about one another, how we have no idea what’s going on in another person’s head. And sometimes we don’t know until it’s too late.

So saliently I sense
The piercing of my own heart
That my mind lapses and
Skips
Over the trials of others

I forget that it’s not
I
Alone
That suffocates under the
Grip of isolation
It’s not just I who
Gags on the
Sour twinge of rejection

My brothers
Have been kicked out of their hearts
And wander in the wastelands of their minds
My sisters
Reside in their hearts as they’re breaking
And let their woe bleed out
In silence

My friends
We all shuffle
Instead of face one another
With our affliction
Because we forget
We’re all afflicted

But healing only comes
Under the synthesis
Of many minds
Of many hands