recognize

So it goes from sky to sky, from all those stars to just the one, from bright and blue to the depths of black. Your eyes always lit from without and within, seeing by the skins, shining from the flame. Tears flow freely from the fierce and the meek, a script of salt and sheen. Each mythos a microcosm of the possibilities of words and fear. Every trip over the hill and through the woods finding grandma gone, her house another structure full of strangers. All roads lead to roam. 

Nighttime, and the dark has set. The ceiling is the work of time and spiders, the walls are full of holes. The panic again, lungs clenched and the hounds chasing your heart through the hedgerows, all the wrong upon you again. The doors you slammed closed, tight and clever, your belly empty save for enmity. Don’t look out the window— the signs will only frighten. Don’t look in the mirror— the stranger’s there already. All the poems and art and letters, a pillar of smoke rising from the city. All your love and lust and loss— a path in the forest you’ve yet to profane.

The music plays, the knuckles smile and shine. Desperate measures, twice to one cut. Threadbare clowns and furtive playthings stumble through your thoughts. The next to the next to the next one, until it’s all used up. The words you share with countless peers, friends, and confidants jangle around in all the rooms you crowd. The things you think you say aloud. A barn owl circles, Jupiter blinks in the wind. Ask the cards, ask your heart. Ask the beggar at the minimart. You would know it if you looked it in the eyes. The thing in the mirror, the lurker right outside the window. You are what they recognize.