i want to peel your skin back
and reveal your deepest sweetness.
to look at your veins
and memorize their paths.
maybe then i’d understand
why you are so rough on the outside.
it takes a lot of work,
digging your fingernails into the flesh,
pulling and pulling until you are bare.
but it is all worth it;
to visit your center,
to break past what conceals you,
and take you apart
slice by slice.

the light etches
the retinal disk,

plastered in
blue--
green--
red--
bands,
super-positioned
in the mildewed afterglow of
an exigent god--

garrulous,

too upright for death.

Ask why ...

It is an almost unnoticed rivulet of enquiry
that can lead to a torrent of understanding.
an ember to ignite a vast blaze of discernment

Ask why ...

not a statement, not a command,
nor a suggestion, it is a bridge
spanning a chasm between what is and what could be

Ask why ...

it will stir up the cobwebs of complacency
**** at the known routine, lay naked hidden motives
habit and convention are shaken

Ask why ...

it forces excavation of purpose.
gets to the very marrow of impetus
it clarifies, it challenges, dismantles

Ask why ...

it insists on lighting the murky shadows
enquires, at the foundation of reason
it is the beginning of a quiet revolution