pop goes the left knee

the back cracks in unison

morning percussion

08/27/2016

We all have our

Own

Looking glass.

We wear a

Mask

To hide our

Souls.

We only see what

We

Want to.

We're

Oblivious

To everything else.

To reality.

You see,

We never know

Who's who,

What's what...

Unless,

They reveal the

Depths

Of their thoughts,

And we ourselves,

Remove our own

Looking glass.

Though sometimes

I fly

head held high

laughter escaping

arms spread

I will never

be as free

as my

neighbors cat

who fell over

still asleep.

There are no hordes admiring,

no scroll of deeds or backs hunching

over typewriters, stitching tales

of triumph in your honor.

For you the spiders tick in empty

halls of dusty web. Echoes of unnoticed

time passing. But you, Oh Common Man,

hero of the dead, are celebrated by shadows

and bats and moonlight falling silent.

Ancient giants bowing disembodied thoughts

to the dirt in which your feet still echo

in nonexistent memories.

Slayer of monsters at midnight.

Keeper of peace in infant imaginations.

Healer of superficial cuts, slaying dragons

before they enter the castle of a child's heart.

These are the wars all the statued generals

wish they'd fought. Yours is the silence

They will never have.

we only wanted to protect you

from dark magic.

but we didn't realize how much we were sacrificing,

and how lonely you would be,

in order to do so.

but it was you who broke the curse

and saved us all

in the end.

My body lacks scars.

Besides blemishes and mishaps,

I appear clean.

But I feel your breath on my shoulders and while it's just air it feels like the weight of one thousand lives.

I feel where your hands have touched me

-you left trails like a slug

And while they are not visible

I feel your slime and I retch in disgust.

I don't know how but you left scars on my brain matter that no amount of apothecaries can cure

-their most nostalgic remedies can't paint you in a good light

I wish I could shed this skin, like the locust that I am.

For I am a plague, the bible itself told me.

Why you would waste your time to implement marks on something so unworthy…

I don't bother myself to figure out.