• darkness, and it’s closing

    in.

    can i see? do i need to feel my way through

    or should i just open my eyes? if i can,

    do i want to?

    do i want to see the demons

    —or—

    would i rather die unknowing?

    i had all the answers once, because i was stupid or just too smart for my

    own good,

    but that’s gone now. over. over

    and out on the radio:

    a battered little thing, dead in my hand and i know: there’s my contact

    my link to the world outside & once iheard

    whispers from it,

    & once i whispered

    through.

    but the battery’s dead (or maybe i dropped the damned thing somewhere

    back

    along the way--would i lie to myself

    if i had? maybe    ) & i know this place has only darkness, and nothing of the

    sort i seek.

    My eyes open; without knowing (only hoping)

    they were closed,

    i’d thought it was dark—

    (a flick of light?)

    but i snatch a glance around,

    —and the world’s no brighter. eyes closed or open,

    i can’t find my way.

    you have a gift, they said, and it’s all i remember then—

    then is where i should be,

    maybe.

    but they sent you away, sent you here—sent you

    from them—away—

    & there’s a voice, only my own of course;

    no good as a guiding light but

    it gives lovely hindsight i suppose. i’d like to know

    now if i’ve still got that gift;

    if only i’d remember what it was, oh god if i could remember

    anything!


    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    i’ve stopped walking--not safe to do here—

    where are those demons you worried about,

    maybe they’ll give chase?

    —so i run.

    now and then a shadow will change

    ; or maybe

    that’s the beating of my heart—so

    i’m alive?

    wouldn’t you rather be dead? says my voice, & i didn’t know

    i could be so bitter.

    all through this i’ve slowed to walking pace

    arms stiff at heaving sides, & legs gone to

    rubber.

    the darkness doesn’t change to light; there’s only

    everchanging shadows to my eyes. maybe the darkness

    took that gift everyone

    said i had, said so right to my face &

    they wouldn’t lie to me, now would they?

    actually—i can’t

    remember.

    Says a voice,(--mine—&was there ever another?) ,

    do dreams ever lie?

    —do dreams

    ever

    lie,

    or do they tell you what you want to hear.

    somehow it grows from question to insistence,

    & i remember one thing: how that voice always made me wince—

    --i

    didn’t

    think i

    could be so bitter.

    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    you have a gift, they whisper.