A Little Light

A LITTLE LIGHT

Humans tingling like thistles,
Tangled like weeds.
Interlocked like cold blooded snakes.
Our nest beneath a bridge
Lost souls bedding down without words.
No friends here, just lost passengers.
Commuting at the end of the day to the warmth.

I found a space amidst the shapes.
Like a child trying to force the square into the triangle of his toy.
There is no education in this place, just knowledge.
I saw you then, a teenager wrapped in newspaper.
Buried up to the headline, black and speckled from the ink of life..
I remarked allowed how people were literally walking over us.
You rewarded me with a smile.

You were my pallet,
You painted colours back into my landscape.
Digging for gold in bins
Begging for copper.
Watching you turn white,
When the brown needle hit your arm.
You called it 'My light that never goes out'

Days multiplied like bacteria and we made our home among the decay.
Friends exist in the word of homes, clubs, coffee shops and bars.
On the street there is only room for an acquaintance.
Sitting with you each day on the edge of streets filled with thorny brambles.
That would prick and tear flesh if we so dared to ask for change
We were mangy dogs, begging for treats.
Left hanging over an empty bowl.

We lived in a world of fossilised souls.
Pressed down into the bedrock and trampled by fortunate lies.
A forest of humans rooted where they stand by the thick mud of judgement.
Left swaying in the breeze, threadbare of leaves.
Lives reduced to the twisted branches that scrape and tap on windows in horror films.
We sit and we beg as a testament to all that could go so wrong for other lives.
A performance that shows the very thin line between have and have not.

We were often castaways, swept aside by the wave of blue light.
Wrecked lives herded away from tourist eyes.
Hundreds of pieces of driftwood collected by the uniformed and dumped aside.
No matter the pile up, or from where we had to crawl,
You would smile as you found your rest.
Put to sleep by a wave, injected through your veins.
Your antidote for a poisonous and toxic life that infected you.

It is the tough decisions that we must weave together to build rope.
Then to secure ourselves upon the cliff face of of life.
Alcohol and drugs provide immunity from feeling.
But you can not climb with feet and hands bound.
So we dangled and we smashed against the rocks.
You told me this drug was your lighthouse
It was only then that I finally understood.

The purpose of a lighthouse is to reveal the rocks, for safety not invitation.
A ship beached can be salvaged, but a ship wrecked can only sink.
I could not watch you sink and I chose to swim for shore.
A guide dog is no use when a person refuses to see.
For months I screamed out for change.
From those who passed us by and from you.
Despite all the practice my begging yielded no profit.

Then one morning I found you.
A candleless wick.
A shipwreck, run aground in a squat.
The brown sludge of the seabed congealed in your veins.
The withered timbers of your frame ravaged.
Barnacled holes from the needle marks in your arms.
A life disassembled , less that the sum of its parts.

I can still see all the colours, thank you.
I can still feel the sharpness of the rocks, thank you.
I cherish every leaf that falls from my branches.
I have seen the worst damage is that which we do to ourselves.
I know all that keeps us in chains is our willingness to submit.
I understand now that truth and acceptance is all that cuts through the brambles.
Thank you for being my light that never goes out.



Copyright: Mark Anthony Games / The Human Voice 2016