With the Sun [jake]

I was walking somewhere else,
to some deadened destination.
Blackened, bloodied feet on gravel; blindfolded,
I sauntered onward in the night.
Then, with the sun, came redirection
from darkened paths
to sunlit streets.
I was walking in the light.

I was sleeping, dead at home,
far from the knock at my door.
In the kingdom of the bed, my throne
was like a coffin, and I
the jolly corpse, fattened on
dark fruit, reinforcing
the shades behind which I hid.
Then, like a syringe, the sun
invaded my tomb with medicine,
shining through the window
like revival,
exposing death to life,
and instantly I was visible,
instantly I was light.

I was someone else, glaring into mirrors
with loving-loathing eyes,
betrothed to my
reflection, unrecognized.
“Who are you?” I begged
and mimicked back at once.
I criticized my shadow, then
dug into its shallow skin—
to exhume the cavernous cadaver from within
my open chest. I explored,
but found no rest, even on my knees.
And then, with aubade hands,
You hung a lantern in my heart, to see.
You took me, touched me warm;
members newly arranged,
I found I’d been replaced, reformed.
I’d been illumined; I’d been known.

For awhile the world burned torches in the night.
Then, with the sun, came light.