Dear Paradise

Dear Paradise,

Reality is a twisted thing.

Conscious,

Unconscious,

We succumb in different ways.

Why have you allowed my blindfold?

Why has no one taken it off?

It seems I’ve scrambled day to day

Groping, mourning, and lost.

They said my head was in the clouds,

That I was somewhere else.

I guess I have a bad resting face

But don’t we all somehow?

They said I was shallow, smart,

Just plain and shy and kind.

Their labels hung like itching ropes

That I could never sign.

“Liars,” I thought. “Assumptions.”

And I daydreamed telling them so.

Though my empty eyes only batted them away, and

Slowly

Watched them go.

You of power

You, omnipresent

You’ve let me wander blind.

You’ve spread your exotic, golden wings

And eclipsed all else in flight.

I witnessed the world

I traveled

I spoke.

Universal requirements checked.

I fell in and out

Through endless doors

Disappointed none were correct.

I scaled mountains of pain

Acres of sensation

My mind a lifetime ahead.

I was a witch and my future I brewed

Perfecting, tasting till bed.

Conversations and lessons deep,

Time passed on flitting feet.

Life was a rhythm instinctively matched

A candlelight

Hovering beyond.

Still I traipsed,

Waiting

Waiting

For anything, something else.

With your beautiful song,

You led me down

To possibilities woven from honey.

I retreated to you when reality failed

Addicted by your pleasant shore.

They called me picky.

A fantasizer,

An outcast.

And I, I accepted it fine

Because oh, I needn’t, shouldn’t worry

I’d have friends someday, sometime.

You of illusion

You of creation

Whatever form you take

You’ve stolen my life and replaced it with lies

Of the better, of the could have been mine.

Why have you helped me dig so low?

Why have you not opened the curtain?

Paradise has been here this whole time

But till now, how could I have been certain?

I’ve been blind.

Horribly blind

I’ve painted my eyes with ink

I’ve hoped and dreamed and wished and cried

I’ve kissed reality goodbye.

I’ve sculpted you with a generous chisel

Only to find the real you cracked.

You’ve used my time as a currency

And never paid me back.

Nothing is perfect, they always said.

Then why did I expect it to be so?

How could I know the weight of the ideal

was the heaviest burden to stow?

I’m tattered now

I’m worn

Your blindfold lies cool in my hands.

My eyes sting

They’re unaccustomed to light

But I blink the pain away.

When I get up, I stumble.

Dirt chafes my shaking knees.

The sun beats down in harrowing rays

But I haven’t the will to mind.

I falter through,

I open doors

None of which I supposed.

“Look,” you beg,

“See this one, there,”

Your paradise plain in sight.

But there’s another beside it too this time

A broken, parallel might.

The sun and the stumble and the crows’ beating wings

The imperfect facade that is life.

I look into your eyes

To the depths of your

Lies

And the swirling storm you are.

I drop you and I leave you

I don’t watch as I go.

Your paradise dims like those empty years

Nothing remaining but an unforgotten fear.

I don’t glance behind me.

I don’t grab your hand.

I don’t even care as you leave my land.

Of course, you’ll remember this,

You’ll see me, you’ll know

Smiles and sorrows withal.

But now, I see you too.

And as you fall, I’m not blind at all.

Yours truly,

Idealist,

Broken and Utterly Whole.