The Kingdoms of Light, Dark, and Elsewhere

The Kingdom of Dark

There was once a blind man that lived in the dark.

For years on end, he lived in darkness and silence, passive and thoughtful,

Creating sounds for the objects his limbs could touch.

He touched a surface and called it “table”.

He felt the blood of life and called it “water”.

In time, and quickly, he became aware of feeling; a living thing.

An idea. Infinite, it brought form to the formless.

He called it “sight.”

The Kingdom of Light

There was once a mute woman that died in the light.

For a moment, all was white, full, vibrant; alive.

She created ideas for all the objects she could see but not feel.

She saw water and called it “art”.

She heard music and called it “love”.

When she died, she woke up and said, “Speak.”

The Kingdom of Elsewhere

There were once a man and a woman that lived and died in a garden.

There was once a god who was a circle.

The circle existed and ceased, was and was not.

As alpha and omega, beginning and end.

The clouds roll through space and shower the sky with stars.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

Our Father

Our Father, who art nowhere if not in Heaven,

What hath you forsaken us to?

Why hath you forsaken us so?

Hath you truly left us to ourselves and own (de)Vices,

To survive, alone and lost, the whims of the Universe?

But ever hallowed be thy name;

As long as cushioned pews of a church bring comfort to the souls of His Christians,

Blindly, but still, they work to bring thy kingdom come;

For what Noble Lie shall thy will be done?

And in my heart, I fear it is in Earth as it is in Heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread. though the wine is surely poison,

And whilst half your flock is rabid, you lull the rest into your House,

Affording them an hour of conscience free of guilt,

Allowing them to forget their troubles of others.

And forgive us our trespasses, O cruel Lord,

Whose only begotten Shepard is left to die among the wolves.

For even we forgive them that trespass against us.

But prayers don’t feed children, confessions don’t erase blood,

And Church-pews hold no salvation for the suffering and sick;

And yet you lead us not into temptation; for that is our mortal curse,

and your immortal gift of uncertainty, admit a sliver of lining,

But yet your silver-tongue whispers love; deliver us from evil-,

God has no time for His children who aren’t around to be saved by the toll.

So tell me, my judge, why does Church feel as a court, and Mass like a trial?

[For thine is the kingdom,

the power, and the glory,

for ever and ever.]

Amen.

Unwaking Life

You fall asleep.

Slowly and surely, consciousness loses focus and meaning. Dreams beckon you onward and welcome you with the warmth of a thousand hugs. You smile contently and snuggle your dreams closer, so close that they seem real. They are real, and so are you.

You step off the plane and onto the boat. You’re on a boat. You laugh hysterically for what seems like a lifetime. Or was it just a moment? No matter! What matters is that you’re alive. You’re alive and you’re free.

You stand at the helm and look at your world. What do you want to do? Your mind races with ideas, your mind blanks on the spot. No matter, time is your’s to slow, to stop. So you stop it.

You recline on the deck, bathing under a frozen sun. You sip casually on your drink and wriggle your toes in the sand. You remember those jars of multicolored sand and wriggle your toes in the rainbow. You decide you’d like a handful of Skittles.

You pop them back and chew thoughtfully. What you want to do? An idea comes to mind. You glance up at the light bulb above your head, but decide it’s just the sun.

You look at yourself. You let go. You look back down at the world and walk through the forest that you find yourself in the midst of. You break into a run. You run harder than you thought was humanly possible. But it doesn’t matter, because you’re not human here. You’re God. So you decide to fly. You the owl fly through the trees at a breakneck speed, altering your course with the subtlest of movements.

You come across a cabin where a group of friends sit hidden from the outside. You decide to drop in. They offer you something bright. You ask what it is. They hold up a bag of sunshine. You laugh and breathe deeply. You cough clouds nine, ten, eleven, twelve, skip thirteen, and fourteen.

Your friends ask you how you’ve been. You think about it and decide you’ve been all right. They ask if you want to play a video game. You ask what they’re playing. Some zombie game. You laugh hysterically for what seems like a lifetime.

Just as you’re about to sit down and play, something crashes against the cabin. In a flash, your friends are up and ready. Something claws at the walls of your mind, of the cabin.

You start to bar the door, but change your mind. This is your world.

You explode.

The cabin erupts from around the handful of survivors. The shards rip through the zombie hordes. These aren’t dead zombies of course, it’s just another mutated form of rabies. That way they’re fast. A little less boring. And they need to be stronger, harder, smarter, better. And so they are.

You leap at them with a sword in hand, with a gun, with a lightsaber, with nothing but your bare hands and will(to)power. You cut a path through the masses as your friends do the same. But winning is no fun and everyone wants that high that comes with losing. People thrive on chaos. A wise man once wrote; it is only when we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything.

And you’re free anyways, so why not lose everything? You’ll just get it back. And if you don’t, well, you’ll wake up soon enough. So you let go. Of perception, of your conscious self, of your prejudices and inclinations. You embrace nothing.

And you implode. You see everything at once. You understand without any concept of understanding. You perceive truth, enlightenment without perceiving. You are cut off from it, but you are one with the Force. You are Tao. Most people die before they reach zero. Even math equations can’t always make it that far. But you do. In this world, you can do anything. This is your world without rules. But all things must end. Something pulls you back to your reality. Ending…dying…die..die.

Die….die….you can’t die. You look down at the blood pouring from your stomach. There’s no pain. You’re numb. You fall backwards onto a bed of flowers. You feel some pain. But that’s fine. You are and that is enough. Your friends make their way over to you, the zombies are forgotten. They crowd around you as if funeral bearers. You look past them and up at the tree of life.

You get up. They shake their heads in exasperation. You wish them farewell and you leave. You’re antsy and you have the urge to go somewhere exotic. You think and close your eyes.

You open your eyes.

You look around. You are surrounded by gray.

You look closer and as your eyes slide into focus, you see that the gray is actually silver.

You look around. You are surrounded by silver. You look closer and make out images etched into everything. You see everything in what appears to be nothing. You blink. It doesn’t go away. You frown. This is your world. Nothing controls you here.

You vocally command the silver to leave you be. It shines brighter.

You close your eyes and think.

You reach for that truth, that zero, that perfection. It’s so close. And so far. You breathe deeply and reach farther. It slips farther away. You think. It slips farther. You race towards zero, but there are an infinite number of points to traverse.

You ask the impossible.

And then it hits you.

You realize you have no control. Except over yourself.

You can see the light at the end of the cave. You reach for it. It dims.

Stop.

You stop. You stop trying to reach, you close your mind’s eye and stop thinking.

You accept. Everything, anything, nothing.

You open your eyes. The world is there again. Your friends, the cabin, the forest. Everything is etched with silver lining. You smile. You break into a run, as fast as you think humanly possible. And then you run harder. The world blurs in your motion.

You come to the ship. Your friends are already there. You leap aboard and make your way to the helm. The horizon burns brightly. You remember a movie from what seems like a lifetime ago. You toss your compass overboard. You’re the only one who can tell you what you want. Or where you can find it. You hum to yourself. You look to the horizon. It burns brighter. You take flight.

Every night you die and every night you are born again.

You wake up.

You slowly open your eyes and blink the sleep away.

Sleep….sleep. Where were you? You think.

You breathe deep and stretch, letting the fatigue roll down your limbs and out through the tips of your fingers, out through the tips of your toes. Then you realize…slowly…..you look around..it’s coming faster now….and it hits you-.

I’m you and that makes all the difference.