Your Ruined, Blessed Eyes

What you show me
is, according to you,
the way to heaven. A stairway
to God; a path as difficult
as any I’ve known, one without
milestones or markers
to let you know how close
you came — but
it’s not heaven, anyway.

I take another road
that you warn me against:
a road to hell or something
like hell, a stairway past God
through a deep wood of old trees,
virgin forest; the milestones here
laugh at you until their sides ache
and you never get away from them,
you will never escape — this is not hell
anyway; it’s just another road.

You surrender to the fact
that you don’t know where you are going
and you never will until
you close your eyes and ears to what
people like me tell you. Maybe
it’s heaven, maybe it’s hell;
you won’t know until you get close.
You won’t know until you see the skyline
beyond. You won’t know till
laughter stops and the trees
thin out and all you can see
is stars, fading from view
as you close your ruined, blessed eyes.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T