By Dionna Dash

 The Abyss

Sometimes she stares into the beautiful abyss of invisibility, self-doubt, and passive happiness and she feels whole again
For every drop of water, for every thunderous rumble, she feels pride
And pride feels like emptiness, obscurity, silent protest
She wants to fade away
For people to remember her for not being there
For remaining forever in their periphery, never fully coming into focus

And sometimes she stares into the beautiful abyss of invisibility, self-doubt, and passive happiness and she cries
Big, fat, nasty tears that prove too literally how much she is there
Perhaps the dark can hide her momentarily, but she will eventually be found
Be brought into view, out of the shadows and the black abyss, into the light of the judging sun and faces
So she once again induces the rumbles and fades

For when the light comes, she will be transparent
And the rays will go right through her

The Light

Sometimes she stares directly into the righteous, rarefied light
Like small children who must be told that the sun’s glare burns their retinas
And candy rots their insides
And it is painful and damaging and she wants to be anywhere other than the measuring palace of sanctimony
But some semblance of her former control is screaming to gain footing
And by a miracle’s gentle touch, she pauses the consuming silence and listens

And sometimes she stares directly into the righteous, rarefied light
Like a suffocated man waiting for the final breath to halt in his pronounced lungs
And enter the interminable waystation
And it is judging and burning and harsh, X-raying a solid body with a see-through essence
Skin and bones, and much too much of everything in between
Filling in the cracks of her fissured mind
Lit afire by the yearning light, dripping passively into the hollow abyss
Her scratch-marked, throat-closing, back-stabbing safety

For here in the light, she is a coward
And the rays sting the parts of her she cannot starve