Oppeium

By ZK

Fiery sparkles, alighting on atmospheres
on winds, on high,
illuminating the tiny, pale-blue-skinned Sphere
amidst our oversized, darkened, blue-black fears.

Trodded back home, and removed my shoes,
with sore, sore-soled feet, and tired eyes,
but just from it all and more before,
and what after.
11:11 as it said above the kitchen fire's den.
Looked away and I whispered
for The Peace, of the world.
Yet when I turned back, the Minute had another hand.

Scupper the scruples, or bungle the test.
Hypothetical annihilation:
objectively neutral, political evil uncontrolled.
To halt the bare-faced monster whose fangs we sharpened,
as we stuck our head in and looked up, to get a better view
to our own demise.
Or maybe the thrill of seeing
what our enemies would feel,
the fright that would seize them,
right before they cease.

A chain reaction that cannot be stopped, and will consume,
will great-destroy the whole Entirety,
things far more important beyond ourselves.
It is sciamachy: battling shadows,
ghosts that aren't there, and that aren't scary
if they were.
You believe they are stealing your bricks, to build their own tower higher
like a thief, and a laborer who cobbles.
And you shade your eyes, and spite they who look ill
down upon you.
Yet you cannot grasp how far they gaze out,
how much they can see,
and how they are looking into that which terrifies them,
and to protect the rest who cannot ever—
and can never—understand.

Staring into the blinding, brilliant, awful and sublime luminescence;
As if by looking at the gods, we could become them.
And we did.
For we will create the idols of destruction of our own making,
designed in the way we seek to reave.
And the pedestaled laureate sitting atop,
slightly lower, may bow their head,
unable to imagine how high we'll climb.

****

ZK is a human looking to express and to explore. Brother of a service-member: one of uniform, protection, empathy, and honor.

We live in an age so far, so close, yet so far—with so much healing to do.