We’re under a vast illusion.
Somewhere along the line we
came under this impression and
somehow we think that
we’ll always have it all together.
Always have all of our
strings wrapped
perfectly around one finger.

That the earth will always
spin the right way.
That the weight of the
metaphorical world won’t tip our
planet’s axis .2 centimeters to the right,
uprooting the ground from
underneath of all of us
suddenly and all at once
the balances shift,
Kristallnacht.
A German word.
It means, simply,
Crystal night.
The night of broken glass.
The night of broken people and
shards of lives.
The night everything fell
apart, suddenly and
all at once
the scales re-arranged themselves,
Kristallnacht.
Mid-way into a thousand year
reign of 12 years.
The end of the beginning and the
beginning of the end.
The definition of destruction and the
physical representation of a
bubbling and spontaneous
hatred.

You see, we’re under a vast illusion.
We think that the world will
always look this way,
That we’ll always be
young forever.

You see, she used to run through
meadows, picking
wildflowers and daisies,
blowing dandelions and making
carefree wishes.
Running barefoot,
arms splayed out,
heart all akimbo through
fields of forget-me-nots,
singing about how he loves her,
loves her not.
Not a care in the world.
Then the riots started and
she couldn’t explain why
the meadow she used to
run in was suddenly full of
stones with names tattooed on the
front with a date.

Overnight, the balances
shifted and that 6 year old
girl seemed to age 10 years.

She saw it all.
Beautiful faces, beautiful minds.
She saw the world fall apart like
fluttering hearts and
butterfly wings at midnight.
People coming back together
in a huddle of broken
promises and forgotten hallelujahs.
A 1000 year reign cut short.
She saw the end of the
world as she knew it.
Saw the careless hatred
decimate her carefree meadow
of daisies.

She began to sing a new song.
Picked a handful of
forget-me-nots and
chose to love
like she did
before the night the world ended.