When I was young,
I’d tilt my chin up
towards the sun
and squeeze my
wide eyes shut.
Submerged in
jack-o’-lantern glow,
I’d prepare for a show
of abstract swirls and
pulsing dots,
projected on the backs
of my thin lids.
I’d watch
as if
the shades and shifts
were some kind of
on-demand
planetarium.
I’d decipher this show
and find stories sewn
throughout the
morphing glare.
Depending on mood,
health, or where
I sat basking,
the tales I deciphered
could be optimistic
or damning—
fables dancing
upon the cave walls
of my skull.
All of this to say,
I realized today
that so many adults,
striding stern
and resolute,
must have never pried
their clenched eyes
open to the truth.
Perspectives bent
by emotion,
interpreters of
silhouettes and
wobbly notions,
glued to
flickering shows
in their
cave skulls.
For some,
it’s been so long
they can’t recall how
the world has frame,
how it rushes and hums,
swaddles and maims.
To open one’s eyes
is a lifetime
of reconciliation—
an endless onslaught
of confounding
information
information
information.
It’s much easier,
I know,
to lean into
the glow
of abstraction.
After all,
Plato’s cave
is more welcoming
than Macbeth’s
sound and fury.
So they tilt their chins
up towards the sun
to keep their
wide eyes
blurry.
pm poetry 