Seeing as You Do

My only wish on this earth

Is that someday, I may come to see as you do.

That my eyes shall blink away the poison,

That the frost-burn of long-suppressed tears

May someday subside…

Even if I have to take your vision

straight from your sunken sockets,

I’ll do anything.

Anything to see gold in the cracked pavement;

Sunlight in the crumbling buildings

Of our city block.

I’m blind, or good as.

Like a creature borne of mountain caves

And stagnant water…

But you came to under a morning sky,

Eyes backlit by daydreams, by silver tears

So easily shed in this ugly life of ours.

I would push my fingers through the blood of you to understand.

I would snip, and break, and twist, as you know I can.

As you know I won’t.

My body cannot sustain a stolen song.

I know you can pick out the rhythm of gunshots;

A deafening drumbeat.

You think there is nothing to fear,

And I know how easily I am killed.

I know you hear music in the forlorn train whistle;

The one that wakes me from my solemn slumber.

Reminding me, each night, that I can never leave.