Kaleidoscope

 

My head was yanked 

From the clouds,

The icy waters of reality splashed,  Mercilessly, upon my groggy face,

Pain pierced my throat as swollen lungs gushed air

Into a collapsing tunnel

I shivered and counted the bumps on my skin

I bit my thumb to make sure I was alive...

Just as I suspected,

Numb

 

It was cold outside, freezing, 

I learned the hard way.

By falling and puncturing palms that forgot to bleed until after the pain hit

Like no other thing

Like nothing

I felt...nothing

With topaz fingertips and sapphire lips, I diagnosed myself with hypothermia,

My skin dimpled against frosty vapor, I needed to protect my self from exposure

I needed to feel...safe

So I went inside and allowed the lock to snap firmly into place

I didn't even realize that I was running away, 

Not till later,

It just happened.

 

Internally, I never recovered 

My chest made shallow noises as the red cardinal outgrew its cage

My breath came out in gusts of tangible fog,

But on the outside my flesh thawed

Beads of sweat became floods of water gushing over my forehead, 

And, in one night only,

I was anointed.

 

My drenched lids strained beneath the weight of seven seas, 

So vision failed me,

But somehow I knew the mask was there,

Right there...

Just within reach of my shriveled finger tips, 

Almost as if it had been awaiting my arrival, 

As if it had known I was coming,

It beckoned me,

And left me no choice

It begged me,

And left me no choice

It implored me to pick it up,

So I did.

I had no choice.

 

Never noticing the desperate chiming of the clock

Or the three piercing cries of the crow at dawn,

I picked it up and let the curtain fall, Deserting reality who waited, patiently, in the wings

 

Although I was inebriated, the power was too intoxicating

The possibilities too endless, 

For me to pause and fathom my loss of control,

I could be anyone 

And no one

All at once,

I no longer had to be myself

I could escape,

People could gaze into my glassy eyes

And create their own reflections

My irises would be a masquerade ball

And my soul the guest of honor,

I could escape

So I linked arms with strangers

And danced till midnight, 

When the sun embraced the moon,

Midnight, when I stepped on glass

And the subsequent tsunami of scarlet waves drowned me in the reminder that I was human

That I could no longer carry my burden on my own two feet,

Hobbling on cobblestone 

A crystal in my ball

Predicting a heavy rain of holy water turned to wine

 

Behind the mask, nobody saw me falling

For one night only

I was a queen sitting on an ornately crafted throne

The mask, a jewel encrusted crown adorning my head,

The kingdom's power laying dormant within my fingertips,

One night only, 

And the power was snatched 

 

I didn't notice at first,

That the mask and I had become one,

So it proceeded to consume me in silence,

Over time,

I no longer wanted the mask,

..No

I needed it 

Insatiably, I needed it

Over time

The mask wasn't a part of my face,

It was my face

It was me

The jewels gleamed, the crown swelled 

And my collapsing skull could no longer bear weight of adornment, 

So the grenade became the most precious ornament

Its pin taunting me like a spinning top, teetering over the brink,

But never quite falling off the edge

In silence so bleak you could hear a pin drop, or not,

I was devoured

 

I tried calling out for anyone

But I knew no names

There were only dazed faces

Circling endlessly

Around and around 

The start and end were one and the same

Time jolted and hastened the motion of its hands to brace itself for an imminent fall,

Swaying to the lull of their monotony

.... Hypnotized

 

They could not hear me, they could not see me, they could not help me,

They were long gone

Or so it seemed

Desperately, I turned and ran in the opposite direction

But something hindered me from continuing on my intended path,

So I stumbled and scraped my dignity

And, from behind their masks, nobody saw me falling

 

Surrounded,

I was surrounded

The air was getting tighter

The clouds closer, 

I could sense their hostile gazes,

I knew they could tell I wasn't one of them

That I would never be one of them

So I pressed the mask tighter,

To protect my back from flying knives

And to dull razor sharp tongues,

I gasped for air

I needed air

Without the mask I couldn't breathe

But the moment I put it on,

I suffocated

The mask had become its own entity

And stolen my identity in the process

 

We stared at each other,

Eyes unblinking,

My half 

Tentatively perched on a plastic chair

My whole 

Enclosed in a glass prison

Inmate 667

Restrained by guards and self doubt

I wasn't its first victim,

I knew that now,

And I surely would not be its last

I clawed at my stubborn reflection

Which gazed at me, puzzled, from the other side of the glass panel

Silently inquiring: isn't this what you wanted?

I paused, my hand curved like a scythe, and, for the first time in what seemed like an eternity, thought about what I wanted

About what I needed to sustain my sanity, but, much more than that,

Too survive

 

I had wanted, more than anything, to stop being

Alone

Afraid

Insecure

Empty

So I had filled the void

With a filter

That spat me out

After molding me into the ideal image

By tearing me to shreds,

By stifling the essential traces of my being

Now that I fit in, I wanted nothing more than to break out

So I was left in the cold,

Once more an orb in the icy depths 

Of isolation

It was only then, in the throes of relapse into hypothermia, that I realized I no longer knew what it meant to be alive 

 

So I stopped clawing and I stopped scratching

And I stopped waiting for rescue

Instead, I beat,

I beat the glass screen before me with all the pain and rage of a rusted tin with its contents spilling out

I beat with all the hope of a sinner renewed by baptism 

I beat with all the desire of a human being who wanted to be...

Alive

 

"I matter!" "I matter!" "I matter!"

I screamed and I shattered

My dizzying laughs turning to uncontrollable sobs

I let it all go,

At first, I thought I was breaking, because I'd forgotten what it was like to be free

Then, with noise enough to surpass the enigma of the universe,

I broke the silence

 

As the shards scattered before me, I gazed at what was no longer my reflection,

And saw this new, distorted being,

This stranger with a familiar face,

The nose I recognized,

But not the mouth with its newly acquired determination

And not the eyes which were lit from within by a soul that burned with unabashed intensity,

Without the mask,

This new face was scarred,

But the eyes could see,

Without the mask 

This face was scarred,

But the mouth could speak,

Without the mask,

I was scarred,

And within those scars was inscribed a puzzle, a maze that only a select few could trace to my fiery red heart

 

The mirror had fallen to pieces and made me whole,

I no longer felt that, at any given moment, the grenade's pin would shift and I would explode

I could speak without an iron bit, crushing my tongue, muffling my voice

I could see without blinders,

threading my lashes, blurring my vision

So I gazed at the shards on the floor,

Captivated

As some familiar fragments, some foreign, all peered back at me,

Faces, voices, eyes of the unearthed past, unwrapped present, and unknown future

Chests rising and falling, effortlessly, as one

We breathed

In...hope

Out...despair

We breathed

In...peace

Out...oppression

We breathed 

In...

Out...

A haunting symphony,

A serene melody's echo that traveled across centuries of intertwined dreams

We...breathed

Free at last

A kaleidoscope of souls

That had been unmasked.