by thom ingram
Awoke one morning,
one morning from sleep,
my bloody eyes stoned
and reaching for the light
For the light that hid
in shards from the thin
and stuck lids of my eyes,
of my bloody stoned eyes.
I was buried, buried you see
beneath a pile of stones
piled atop of me, each
with its gritty face facing me.
On each stone, on the face
of each stone, the name
of a person or place, a year
or a date or a quote.
And each quote, each name
weighed down, its face
facing me, shards of light
fighting to find me.
In the blurry mirror
and down the foggy road,
all day at work
these smothering stones
The ghosts of things
I wished and lost,
the people I’d wronged
and lies I told.
All day I tried to see
the world in front of me,
but each time a voice whispered
or spoke, a stone would glow.
And each time the dark girl
with the quirk in her lip would laugh
or brush back her soft hair
and half smile, a stone would glow.
All day I tried to brush aside
the gritty contours before my eyes,
all day I tried to tell someone why
I was acting, and feeling so alone.
I went to bed that night
still unable to see, still
taking stabs at the light,
at the now cold, artificial light
and that night dreamt of spring days
in wide open fields, of the beach
and the heat, and sailing on a sea
that had never seen a stone.
Then a lighthouse on the shore
with a single beacon,
warning me to keep away
from that which would drowned me.
Then the next day nothing,
No stones. Nothing so vibrant
or visual. But a deep feeling
of being kept; captive, separate, alone.
–
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