May 2014
The streetlight is shaped like a lantern
And its golden light spills out in a clear, spoked pattern of darkness and illumination
Its shadows stretch long
And reach their fingers into your empty windows.
If I stand at its base, I stand at the center of a great perfect wheel of light that sprays in all directions.
I speak to you
Because you speak to me.
I wonder
If you recognize the surgical mask swinging from my arm
Soft and white.
They tell me your walls breathe poison
They tell me
That I shouldn't.
I stand and whisper to you
Who I am
Who I have been.
Perhaps the shade of a girl like me
Peers out your yawning windows
Through the spaces where the glass has been punched out
Past the ragged, yellowed curtains that sag limply from above
Out
From between the leafless ivy that twists its gnarled strands up your crumbling skin and digs into all your weaknesses.
Perhaps if I had shown myself a bit earlier
If my life had begun before it did
Perhaps we would have met in a different way.
It makes me sad that I fear you.
Your stone steps, carpeted with dead leaves, black metal railings leaning drunkenly to either side.
Your unnatural stillness.
But I do not fear to walk your halls
Not like the others.
No,
I do not fear you
I fear to become you.
That still
And that lifeless
Like a tree which has long since died and the core rotted
But the husk remains standing
As if it contains something alive.
Are you lonely?
Are you still afraid?
What does it feel like every night
When this streetlight above me blinks on
And peeks inside your high windows?
Do you rush to shut the drapes
Soggy and transparent as they are
Try to pull some tattered protection over the garish
Harsh emptiness you hold?
I stand here
And I feel you looking back at me
And I am sorry that nothing lives in you
And I am afraid that nothing lives
In me.
And if I were to go upstairs and peer out your top windows
I am afraid I would become see through
Like a strip of film
Illuminated.
I fear that I would be a projection on a solid world
And I fear
That somebody
Would turn out
The light.
And its golden light spills out in a clear, spoked pattern of darkness and illumination
Its shadows stretch long
And reach their fingers into your empty windows.
If I stand at its base, I stand at the center of a great perfect wheel of light that sprays in all directions.
I speak to you
Because you speak to me.
I wonder
If you recognize the surgical mask swinging from my arm
Soft and white.
They tell me your walls breathe poison
They tell me
That I shouldn't.
I stand and whisper to you
Who I am
Who I have been.
Perhaps the shade of a girl like me
Peers out your yawning windows
Through the spaces where the glass has been punched out
Past the ragged, yellowed curtains that sag limply from above
Out
From between the leafless ivy that twists its gnarled strands up your crumbling skin and digs into all your weaknesses.
Perhaps if I had shown myself a bit earlier
If my life had begun before it did
Perhaps we would have met in a different way.
It makes me sad that I fear you.
Your stone steps, carpeted with dead leaves, black metal railings leaning drunkenly to either side.
Your unnatural stillness.
But I do not fear to walk your halls
Not like the others.
No,
I do not fear you
I fear to become you.
That still
And that lifeless
Like a tree which has long since died and the core rotted
But the husk remains standing
As if it contains something alive.
Are you lonely?
Are you still afraid?
What does it feel like every night
When this streetlight above me blinks on
And peeks inside your high windows?
Do you rush to shut the drapes
Soggy and transparent as they are
Try to pull some tattered protection over the garish
Harsh emptiness you hold?
I stand here
And I feel you looking back at me
And I am sorry that nothing lives in you
And I am afraid that nothing lives
In me.
And if I were to go upstairs and peer out your top windows
I am afraid I would become see through
Like a strip of film
Illuminated.
I fear that I would be a projection on a solid world
And I fear
That somebody
Would turn out
The light.
