The Obsidian Theater XIV




Good evening.

I’m sorry to say we don’t have a show scheduled for tonight.

Too many people didn’t show.

Performers were absent.

The ticket girl is dead

The dancers are downstairs naked and in piles of sweaty flesh


And I’m here,

Talking to you.


It’s just one of those nights

One bottle of wine
And
Three packs of cigarettes later

And the shadows turn to people

The stage lights beam down on you

Like a blinding sun

Prompting you to open your heart
And spill the regretful clots that block relief from your soul

Some time ago

Day in and day out

I was there for another.

A relation of mine who suffered from a disorder of the eyes

Glaucoma

Unusually high pressure
within the eyeball
that leads to damage of the optic disk.

I become the eyes she wished she had.

The valet she wanted
The Grandson she loved.
The only person there who could do anything

Numerous visits and endless prescriptions filled:

Polytrim
Four times a day, left eye;

Atropine
One time a day, left eye;

Prednisolone
Four times a day, right eye;

Travatan
Before bedtime in right eye;

Timolol
Two times a day, right eye;

Brimonidine
Two times a day, right eye;

Dorzolamide
Three times a day, right eye;

All in one day.

Eye drop medications

Bottles with
White tops
Red tops
Pink tops
Turquoise tops
Yellow tops
Purple tops
And orange tops.

Each day of putting someone else before you
Because you love them
And
They did the same for you when you were a child

You’re hopeful those hours in surgery will help

You feel utterly useless waiting for something you cannot control


Imagining what those frail, foggy eyes think of you

When you pull back the pus-crusted eyelid back to administer some relief.

And her moaning in the night matches your fears


And when she speaks you tell her how well you’re doing at work in at school
How you have a lovely girlfriend
And you’re getting along with mother


But these are lies
Lies to lessen the troubles

But I have to work is excruciating

School is put on hold

Girlfriend is non-existent

Replaced with shallow, empty hook-ups in bars

And Mother doesn’t speak often

Only to dispel her constant disappointment

But not Maw-maw

She looks at me as an angel

And good person maintaining a life when she is ill

But I’m not sure it’s all that

Either
My happiness has never been important

It’s always been others I wished who were happier than me

Why?

Because I can make that sacrifice

I can forfeit my happiness for others
Because I saw the world for what it is
And the last thing I want
Is for others to see that side of life

I’ll make the sacrifice
So others don’t have to.

Why?

There a monster from where I came from
It was Hell itself
And it devoured all

My body was slammed and crushed in the underbelly of the immortal beast
Hellbent on ridiculing me
With Toys and whips and
Instruments of merciless pain.

All in the name of “good”
Of “love”
Of “care”
Of “discipline”
Of “God”

Looking up at the framed picture of Christ in my Maw-Maw’s room
I feel so naked

So weak

And afraid

Orbital apparitions of anguish
Hover while I sleep

Wishing just to be in the arms of one person

Who loves and truly cares
And will accept my release
And my tears.






One bottle of wine,
two swigs of self-loathing,
a case of nostalgia
A line of white-lighted prayer
Four packs of cigarettes
And a dying stage light later…

And we have a show.

Look at that

A full house.


I’ll take a bow.