I Open My Eyes and am Frightened by What I See

I

I open my eyes and am frightened by what I see.

I don’t know where I am, and I can’t remember how I got here.

I squint my eyes, desperately seeking anything familiar in the foreign shadows.

I close them, count to three, and open them again,

But nothing has changed.

I continue to do this until days, weeks, months go by unnoticed,

And each time I open my eyes I am more startled than before.

I am confused, dazed, disoriented; my body shivers.

I frantically reach out into the darkness and expect you to rescue me;

You always rescue me.

But I cannot find your strong, comforting hand.

The cold air rushes between my fingers as they stretch out in desperation.

Eventually I give up; you aren’t coming.

And so I cry, cry, cry,

My sorrow screaming and reaching across the depths of this dark, empty land.

II
We used to be inseparable, you and I: two parts of a whole.

I could not feel my heart beat without feeling yours beat as well;

Your love flowed through my bloodstream, into my core,

Awakening and pumping life into my sleeping soul.

Your thoughts were my thoughts, and your voice was my voice.

I remember the way my eyes would tear up when your warm whispers tickled my ears.

You said you were delighted by me,

By me!

Oh, how I loved you.

I remember sitting on the beach with you,

Running my fingers through the sand and remembering your promises fulfilled.

I heard your breathing in the sound of waves flooding in and out over the shore;

The wind rustling through the evergreens was your quiet voice singing me a sweet 
    lullaby.

Your eyes sparkled in each sunset’s rays and the glow of heaven’s stars,

The touch of your hand was more familiar than my own mother’s.

Before my breath had time to whisper your name,

You were there.

My heart overflowed with gratitude and life!

Our hearts were intertwined like wild, unkempt garden vines;

You were everything to me.

III
But now your voice is distant, like the sound of a faint echo in a deep canyon;

I strain my ears but I cannot understand your words.

Did you see it coming? Did you try to warn me?

I cannot recall when it began, when our souls were torn apart.

One day I awoke and realized I forget what you look like when you laugh;

I can picture your face, like a still photograph, a moment frozen in time,

But I cannot make the memory come to life.

I cannot remember the tone of your chuckle or

The placement of the wrinkles at the corners of your eyes.

Time turned roaring flames to dying embers,

And I am left with a strange memory

Too clear to be a dream but too distant to be reality.

IV
I no longer know what is real and what is right.

I have given up my search for truth,

The closer I draw to what is real, the more distant your voice becomes.

I didn’t want this, you know;

Wasn’t it you who told me to

Love the poor, confront injustice, open my youthful eyes?

I thought I did this for you;

I thought this search for truth was in your name.

I look back at my old self and cringe at my naivety,

Trapped in a raging sea of fairy tales and deception.

Yet, I was certain you loved me, and I loved you back.

Now, I have found the shoreline and fought my way out of the sea of lies,

But you are nowhere in sight.

I thought knowing the truth would bring me closer to you,

But I have never felt so far.

Is it not possible to know both,

To see the oppression of a people, but still believe you remember them?

To witness the abuse of power, but believe you are in control?

To encounter hatred around every corner, but know your love can overcome it?

V
I no longer recognize the world I live in, the life I have.

I don’t know how to find you, which road to take;

Everything once familiar is now foreign.

Maybe I was destined to a life

Wandering this Road to Nowhere.

I shift from home to home, continent to continent,

But I am never comfortable, never content.

Suddenly I find myself numb to your joy and beauty

And instead feel the intense, stabbing pain of human suffering.

Numbness as submission, rejection, protection.

As my soul’s final attempt at being okay,

A survival mechanism.

I have drained my heart of too many feelings, my eyes of too many tears,

And the well is now drier than summers in the Sahara.

I try to believe you want me to find my way back to you,

But I don’t think I do.

I want to feel your love as I once did,

But sometimes I don’t believe I can.

You tell me everyone makes mistakes, that you still love me.

I don’t believe you; I am ashamed.

I look at the life-size dolls of perfection around me;

They are foolish, manicured, deceived,

But I secretly envy them.

The phrase “Ignorance is bliss” has never been truer.

I struggle to believe the one they love is the same one I love;

Is one a counterfeit, a conjuring of the imagination?

Maybe it was a dream, or maybe this is a dream;

Maybe I am the foolish one, and not they;

Maybe I am yet a child and my “reality” is only my silly imagination.

I am so lost and flawed,

All I want is to believe you love me anyway.

Please, Lord, show me this is true and

Believe me when I tell you my delicate heart cannot be broken

Again.