And I came to the place where the Guard was standing,
And could feel the thickness of the walls he was guarding.
And he would not let us in,
So we sat, and felt the walls,
And felt the hurt,
Until we remembered we were the same thing
And the guard was scared,
And felt shame for keeping the child locked up for so long,
And was scared that it would be destroyed
For its failings
And I reminded him we are the same,
And he is loved,
And all he did was not his fault,
We were doing it to ourselves.
And the walls started thinning out,
And as they did, another presence came out,
And it was full of rage and anger
At the guard, so the guard shrank back.
And the Avenger came from the shadows,
Screaming that this is unfair,
Why has this been covered up for so long?
And he was thirsty for blood
And we let him be angry,
And let him be thirsty,
Until we remembered that we were the same
The guard, the avenger, and the observer
And We reminded ourselves that we had done the best we could,
And we were all responsible for the wall,
And we were all trying to help the child,
In the best way we knew how
And we were loved,
And allowed to be angry,
And scared,
And hurt.
And the avenger threw visions
Of cousins pinned to walls
With vile threats of death and dismemberment,
And an uncle bloodied and bruised
And the walls thinned out to reveal a hallway,
And there were spinning colors at the end
And a nauseous feeling filled our bellies,
Deep, deep inside.
And the guard flinched with guilt
For keeping the child locked up,
And for fear of the avenger
And we observed ourselves as one
And a wooden door became visible
With vertically running strips of dark metal
About one and a half inches thick
And in the upper center was a window
The window was lined with iron bars,
And inside there was a couch,
With a film projector, projecting onto the wall
And on the couch, entranced was the child
And the nausea filled our bellies
And we tried to make out the film that was playing
Over and over on repeat,
But could only get the gist
There was a bed,
And vomit,
And guilt,
And shame
And I know the place,
My brother on the bed, had vomited
And I felt the urge to vomit,
And then it goes blank
And we tried to communicate with the child,
But he was entranced in the film,
Unable to pull away
And we tried to remind him
We were the same,
We are here to help you
And a lightness came into our bellies,
And it felt OK for a second
But no deeper did it get.
And the film still remained blurry,
And it was time to go
So we said goodbye, and started out the hallway.
And the child faded,
And the avenger faded,
And the guard faded,
And the nausea remained.
