Jonah asked me,
‘Thomas, do you wear sunglasses all the time because you don't have eyes?’
In my head I said ‘yes Jonah, you’re right!
I wear them because I don’t have eyes,
I hide behind mirrored glass because I’m scared of the world, Jonah.
I am terrified that maybe someone will understand me--
But I can't stop you, can I Jonah?’
Those words circled round and round in my head and heres what I did say:
I have eyes, Jonah, they’re blue.
In a dream I dreamed that I was Odin,
That I gouged out my eyes in exchange
For all the wisdom and understanding the world had to offer.
Jonah I have ******* holes for eyes,
Big empty spaces where every thing goes in and nothing comes out.
I have dark pools of disbelief and
Grown-up thoughts and
The pictures in my head have edges as if they were film
Instead of fog blurring edges with reality,
And all the caffeine coursing through my bloodstream
Cannot possibly give me the energy you have, Jonah.
Maybe I was Odin once, maybe I was a god--
But that was long ago and I grew up, jonah,
So, I don’t have eyes anymore,
But these blue-black-holes will watch you grow up,
And each year they will grow darker as you grow older,
Until finally I fade to nothing more than a name painted on a wall and
empty sunglasses staring out of the past--
Watching,
Wishing I had told you:
Don’t ever, ever give up your eyes, Jonah.