Autofiction Detail

Awake at 3 a.m. and pacing, you were working, I was dazed

In the kitchen, tracing circles slowly with the turning of the fan blades

And I left from our apartment to the corner, took a right

I saw shadows in the darkness, casted Intermittent in the flashing light

Traffic signals blinking, somehow backwards in my eyes

I saw a stranger in the glass reflected

No one near me but it can't be mine

And the Bible tells of revelations past

Sudden visitations come to prophets stumbling on the path

And a flash of light alive in night, arrives a voice from out of time proclaims

Saul, on the road to Damascus, had a vision and the brightness struck him blind

And so, he changed his name

Mine was no, man, I was nothing

Going nowhere, I was gone

I was naked, I was vacant buildings

I was blending with the blight

I was ghostlike, I was hopeless

For no reason said a prayer

Let some holy spirit moment

Come and force in me a change

A camera hung to capture

On a traffic signal light

And a flash on the path to Damascus

And a change when Saul went blind

I had visions in the city every day

Despite it all and what I saw, my sight remained

And the prophets in town all go on

Back and forward, nowhere, directionless

In their blankets, bending down

Shine and strike, not with blinded eyes, but sight

To look around, now, to see and to notice them

To see the smoke cloud climbing high

And in the night sky find it

An image where the light shines

And a sign from up above

To see the tent, now, burning bright

And to hear it crying out

The voice of Christ at night

When he stumbled all alone and burned alive

Under the streetlights when he died

Only traffic signals, cameras to watch his life extinguished

Glowing white down on the corner by the bus stop, dead

A woman on the sidewalk, narcanned back to life, she rose again

Walked away when the paramedics came

Resurrected by a stranger, she disappeared on Easter

I was there when they pulled into the turnaround

I was standing, glowing, red at emergency

Looked in every window, trying to find you inside

To find a sign glowing in the hallways at the hospital at night

I can see it, now, the place where I'd headed since I left

Always here, you, I felt ashamed

You'd see me first and know how badly I needed you

Now, I turned around, heading homebound

Every current on the ground pulled me back to you

To stumble on the pathway backwards, both a burden and gift to see

Every moment we're alive, a disaster, a tragedy to be and breathe

A curving road, a light above, the labored veins to funnel us

A beating heart and us the blood, thinning by the day

A heavy load, the weight of love

A tongue of flames, a welcome flood

A beating heart and us the blood

A beating heart, a beating heart

A tongue of flames, a light above

The voice of God, a smoking gun

Beating heart, beating heart

A beating heart, a beating heart

Beating heart, beating heart

Beating heart, beating heart

A beaten dog, the snarling teeth

The face of God, a light above

A beating heart and us the blood

In all of us a beating heart