Crossing Over

The candle’s flame flickers and dickers.

I sit, arms enwrapping my torso as it shivers,

the cooling air permeating my night clothes and knickers

Meager light dancing as I sit in a malaise,

awaiting electricity to crackle and to blaze.

My eyes shy from its sudden glaring shine

as light comes off this tiny fire in radiant starry lines.

Grimacing, my sight is dazzled, wincing at its striated flare.

I look aside, but for a moment, wiping away a slowly formed tear.

Yet, a flicker leaps in the corner of my unbelieving eye,

an ever-lengthening shine, leaps from taper to taper

white halos hungrily licking the blackened ends of simple waxy wicks.

Until my sight falls upon it;

The originator it shudders and slows—the act of observation

enough to draw its rays to blowing.

Light running out on endlessly projecting planes.

I squint to focus in on the central portion of the flame,

but the harder I squeeze my lids in tight,

the brighter the flames burst from their

void-born flight, like minuscule exploding nebulae.

Their perfectly spaced galactic arms of pure fire light

walked through the air toward my gaping thought.

Three hovering pinpricks of light held me in place by

Their white-hot lines intersecting in space.

I finally see the joy inside, reaching out and leaping up.

My spirit was eager to join the infinite span, the only

space I ever beheld expansive enough to

encompass my natural truth.

So I step through the portal, blasting open long enough to

birth me into the screaming light of sooth.

Somehow, I feel the flames retreat,

returning to their place, eating away the candles

sitting on the parlor mantle, giving no

indication of my flight to this mysterious land

of endless glowing coaxial red lines.

I can’t be quite sure, but I have come to the conclusion

they are the filaments that comprise or concept of time.

I may have leaped a bit too soon,

For I’m not sure on what I’m meant to survive.

Can a human be sustained on the unspun threads destiny weaves

or the black chaotic matter in which it all hangs?

I will whisper these words through the sparkling twinge of fate,

I saw the moments between thought when I crossed the gate.

If they reach you, know my journey was not in vain

I ventured farther than even my love has ever been.

K.B. Silver