Phantasmagoria

Some trauma of consciousness, I think
The loss of a dream
            The recollection of a nightmare
            Moving to overwhelm the spirit
I can see clearly, how
            I have shut the demons in my private inferno
To prevent myself from watching the angels fall

Somewhere along the line
            Reality shifted, thawed, cracked apart

And flooded my veins
The violence of Nature’s rhythm
Shook forth an echo that stirred planets

            I drew earthquakes along the surface of the Sun
And Night closed her eyes at the tragedy
Saying nothing, for darkness is the absence of voice
                            She left only the stars to scream
Something, I believe,
            Fell out from beneath my very feet
And allowed me for once to see a void in my own being
That opened like the jaws of doom to swallow me
A thousand tongues shook out my name,
                            Cursing me with their requiem

I longed both to awaken
And to see the end of the fall
            Rushing into my eyes
Until I came to crash nakedly into the dawn
It felt obscure to touch down on the pain
                                       Of understanding
The rush was in my temples, my heart,
                                       And my veins
A reverberating cataclysm of my pulse
My foundations shake and tremble
Weary now, giving way
            To shatter, crumble, obliterate,
                                       The final wreckage.
Sending up clouds of dust
Stinging tears, a silent shriek
            Staining the snow-white folds of a new day
                            Like testimony to the sins of the mind
Accusation
            Pointed at… myself?
I would like to be forgiven, then
Innocence is the struggle of worlds
            Light through the darkness
            Peace through torment
            Hope through despair
The collision of what has been, and I
                            Am merely

            The final act of
                            An apocalypse of the heart

But I ravage the depth, nonetheless
            My only triumph lies there
                        Waiting epochs through Time immemorial
                                    For me to meet it on the inside

~Joanne S