On Being White

I am white.

Broken.

Through.

Glass.

I smear

Rainbows.

All colour

Creates me.

We.

The illusion:

White

Light is

Tricky,

Bending

Perception of

What is.

What isn’t.

In the morning

It takes sand

Melted,

Boiled

Liquid poured

To the pain of

Windows we

Look

Through

Showing:

There is more

To what we see

Than what we see.

The sun,

From which we are forged,

Dances

Upon our walls

Glass on glass,

Cut, crystals, hanging,

Clearly twirling

Its bright skirts

Showing

Us

The

Flamboyance

Of what

We are

Truly

Made of.

We were born

Simple.

We lay:

On our backs

Staring at the sky,

A shard of butterfly,

A fragment of flower

Peering into our perception.

We roll

On our stomachs,

Crawl to knowledge

Slowly, shakily.

As we trip on obstacles

We learn:

They were

Put in our way.

Mirrors

Sending

Blinding

White light,

Making us

Think

That there

Is nothing else to see.

Our pupils:

Shuttered closed.

Pinpoints sharp

And piercing,

Not wanting

to let

anything

else in.

We do not see

What we see.

We see

What is not there.

Negatives:

Haunting us.

The calling up of ghosts.

Developing nightmares.

We scream!

We lash out!

Fingernails tearing

At all in our

Reach.

Because we are afraid.

Of what:

Light shows.

We create

Monsters

Out of

Our memories

And project

Their image

On the screens of

Our world.

Unthinking.

Unrealising

That we

Are addled

By lies

And

Warped

Light.

Warped light turned

Inside out,

Wrapped around

Pillars and buildings,

Casting shadows

We

Jump at.

Frightened of the afternoon.

It is only the twilight

That reveals

Truth.

A broadening

Of pupil

Taking

More

In.

Allowing us to

Stand from

Cut hands

And knees,

The soft light of coming dark

That we are

Finally,

Allowed to adjust to.

Why is it

That days

Should be so

Long

When time

Can move

At light’s

Speed?

How long we take

To get here,

To realise

That

White and black

Are all colours

Simply

Rearranged.

That

We

All

Carry

Rainbows

In our skin.

Bent

Arcs of light.

Simply shifting

With the weather,

The turning

Of

The earth

Sunrise

After

Sunset.

That as we are formed

We will be unformed.

And

We will shift

And

Move

Carried out of time

And

Light.

We are all nothing.

We are all everything.

We are all nothing.

We are all everything.

Life born of

Light.

A spectrum

Smeared

Across a

Morning

Wall,

Dancing.