Light ~ poem

Oh to be something 

When you are nothing 

To be flesh 

To be worthy 

But still to be nothing 

When you are still something 

Shattered 

I am dying 

Dust on the baseboard 

Fragments on the carpet 

Heated faces 

Ugly words 

Hands 

Grasping fingers 

The argument goes on 

But I will not 

I was something 

Perhaps I still am 

What is life if cannot give light?

If my shade is bent 

And bulb is shattered? 

What is beyond this room? 

Beyond the words 

And angry shadows 

Dancing in my lights 

What is beyond this house? 

This was my life 

My everything 

But to them I am refuse 

Swept into the pan 

While sorries go unsaid 

I am bits crunching under boots 

I am the shards drawing tiny rivulets 

From fingertips 

And more curses from lips 

I am waste in the black bag in the curb 

That the garbage man takes away 

And buries

This was my house 

You were my family 

I cannot replace you 

I cannot replace this 

I was your lamp 

I was an inefficient lightsource 

A minor inconvenience to replace 

With a more efficient model 

And what about him? 

Is he my son? 

Because he follows me? 

Because he is born of my suffering? 

Will it continue? 

Will my son see what I have seen? 

And break to wicked words 

And hateful hands that move

Before logic can cool them? 

I do not know 

I am not anything 

I was something

Once upon a time 

But now I am formless 

Nameless

Nothing