For Those Who Remain
I thought there was dignity in outrage, dignity in anger
Power
Purpose
Motivation
I don’t need to witness the entire horrific scope of human suffering
Or understand it
I can just become incensed
Let the bitterness boil over
And blame whoever wasn’t there who I think should have been
My little ego says the gods should have been there
And might have been
In disguise
And when I say ‘gods’
I mean any person who was in the position to do more rescuing, healing and raging than they did
But I can’t judge
Not for me to say
As far as I know I was not there
When they fed babies to ovens
But of course I was
In spirit
And that spirit is unclean
Because of what I did, and what I stood passively by and allowed to happen
I don’t like humans?
I love them too much
Or did
Now my love is circumscribed. Delimited.
Organized into a pathology of narcissism, vengeance and violence
There is no civilized place for my version of love
And it is true
I bowed out
I said enough is enough
I cried for me instead of grasping your hand and pulling you out
I consented
I thought madness could be brought to heel through art
Through beauty and nostalgia
I was wrong
If that many people were butchered then it must mean on some level they consented
Or our society did
Or the cosmos did
If we relate through common consciousness then that consciousness, beyond all intimate knowing, approved
So who to blame?
No one
I need to blame
I need order
I need order that I can pull together inside the dimensions of my mental framework
Guilty
All painted with the same dried and crusty brush
I am guilty
You are a distinct, original and lovely you. You are me and not me.
You died
And I could not contextualize
I saw myself long ago, with chords of light connecting me to the life outside of all this death
I saw myself snap out of it
Snap out of sanity
I saw myself become one
It was not a reunion, it was a fracturing
Ah, at last I understand, I told myself
I’m in a prison
Witnessing the natural outcome of disorder and separation
Competing to live
Learning to love in the harshest, most paradoxical of circumstances
Lift others up
Others who were born here and never knew anything else
The other that you became when you thought you were more than us
How well will your beliefs hold up when placed in front of the tide that knows no mercy, with no one to advocate and reassure?
Parts of you will be wiped away
What is not organic will be shattered
What is strong and intended will remain
Fall down and you shall see you have no one and nothing to pin your darkest fears on
You will have no one to blame for your overwhelming guilt and your sadness more bottomless than the ocean
You will see you, and you will either reject or accept it
For you are this place
All places
And you are desperate for a home