I looked on her with the face of the damned.
With the sadness of the exile.
The segmented gap.
The widest breach.

I looked on her with the face of the damned.
Confidence for minutes.
But when let down it all contorted.

I looked on her with the face of the damned.
Pools of sadness outward.
Pools of longing thronging.
Pools of sadness outward.

I looked on her with the face of the damned.
With eagerness concealed.
But when she saw she knew.

I looked on her with the face of the damned.
I looked into her radiance.
I felt her halo quiver.
I felt it shift and turn.

And still the TV’s on too loud. 
So I turn it down.  I lower the bass.  I shift the speakers around.
And still the TV’s on too loud.

But now it’s soft, and the voices murmur.
I can’t split up the sounds,
or parcel out the speech.

So I hike it up, bar by bar, I creep the volume up.
Again the TV’s on too loud.

Then down it crawls, tick-marks green. 
Until I hear it, barely.

And still the TV’s on too loud.
And still it echoes me to sleep.
And still the words evade.

I have a twin.  Sometimes we swap out. 
He’s not so sure as me, not so easy, most unstable. 

He gets the blues a lot, the worldly crash and burn.  Truly he’s depressive. 
He is me, but lacking peace.

Want the simple difference?  A carefree smile in the midst of it. 
For truly we’re the same.  The same in all the rest. 

But he.  He got the harder half, the darker half. 
He beckons toward the worst of it. 
He can’t forget, he tries for me, he fails so miserably.

He’s full of foolish things, of superficial ego. 
His carefree smile’s fake. 
And I just pray his star will wink:
a silent blip and then no more.  

You know that master voice.  The one whose tone exhibits.  The voice for which I search.  Perhaps you know its call.

You know that master voice.  The skittish one I love.  The power one you fear.  The one I must command, and sometimes misinterpret.

You know that master voice, that taunts me with its closeness.  I thought I had it wedded.  I thought I had it wedded.  Handcuffed at the wrist. 

Sometimes it’s in a bag of wind.  It empties out, too hot for me, the limp and wrinkled sag.  It empties out too quick to catch. 

So I aim to conjure it back up.  The master voice, that is. 
My cauldron boils over, my tongue grows lax with chant. 
How often it evades, how rarely does it answer. 
And once its there I lose my task, drowned inside the rant.           

Go play your little games and kiss your mother on the cheek.  Kiss my mother for me, while you’re at it.  I’ve got work to do, and I’m on the verge of something real: a tangible breakthrough. 

What could this next stage be?  I feel myself being slowly lifted.  Sometimes it seems I’m two places at once, and I have to shout to get my bearings.

How heavy is the next load?  What sort of weight will I be carrying?  These are valid questions, and I remain suspicious.  I don’t know if I want ascension. 

I have trouble with reality already.  I can never quite grasp its handle.  How would I be as a beam of light?  Trembling with heat and energy, and shooting hot through space-- unreachable.