Out of the Cave (a poem)

Out of the Cave
By C. Matthew Hawkins
Spring, 2017
Baltimore

Image Credit: WBaltTV

After what seemed like more than a lifetime
in dimly-lit rooms where the musty smell of unwashed clothes
and stale cigarette smoke still lingered in the air
something drew you to the door.

You stumbled through narrow hallways cluttered with empty soda bottles,
greasy boxes of half-eaten pizza, and large plastic bags filled with trash,
waiting to be emptied.

You bumped against smudged walls as you made your way to the door.
You reached for the knob and turned up your nose when you smelled the rotten wood.
The door gave a painful whine when you opened it.

***

Although the air outside was fresh you tensed, 

flexing the muscles in your arms, 

and tightening your fists into knots,

and scowling as you stared down the street, 

nursing fear concealed as anger.

You thought anger would protect you,

but it suddenly dropped away like an unreliable bodyguard.

All that was left was your fear. 

In that brief moment, you were exposed.

Light passed through the summer mist, which rose from the sidewalk after the rain.

The air was sweet.

All things were new again.

***

Sunlight cut across your eyes; 

You squinted with a pout, trying to turn away

but you could swear you caught a glimpse of the very figures of love, truth and freedom 

strolling through the haze.

You snapped your head back to where the figures were, but they are gone.

***

You shook your head to clear it of thoughts and feelings that could not be trusted.

The feeling was strange and new, yet it had shadowed you for years. 

Comfortably familiar, yet disturbingly unexpected, you searched for traces of the elusive figures

and you knew this search was reckless.

***

As reckless as kids on dirt bikes in city streets dodging in and out of traffic,
cutting across alleys strewn with broken glass and across vacant lots overgrown with weeds.

They scraped their knees and blood rose to the surface of wounds too fresh to form scabs.
If you had hung on for the ride no telling where you would have ended up.

You could not trust the feelings that drew you out of the cave.
You tried to retreat into the safety of darkness but stubborn fascination insisted on more than just a glimpse.

You heard the roar of an approaching dirt bike, almost inviting you to hop aboard,
but you wouldn’t even think of riding along because you could not afford to lose control.

Image Credit: 12 O' Clock Boys Film

You could not see the face of the rider, whose ragged, blood-stained bandanna covered everything below the eyes.

How could you trust that which was partially concealed?

Yet above the tattered bloody cloth that flapped in the breeze as he zipped past,
the rider’s piercing eyes looked you dead in the face, and in an instant, he was gone.

Burning, soul-piercing, youthful eyes older than all the centuries
peered beneath a scar across his sweat-soaked brown forehead
and he disappeared as suddenly as he came.

Image Credit: 12 O' Clock Boys Film

It didn’t matter where the feeling came from that drew you into the sunlight,
your impulse was to turn away.

The feeling that drew you out refused to explain itself or to give you answers to all of your questions.

It was a moment of encounter that refused to be confined by your logic.

Your tongue felt like sand against the roof of your mouth and it reminded you that you thirst.

Gradually it dawned on you:

Mystery is not your inability to know; it is your inability to exhaust your thirst for what had been revealed.

Even as you tried to turn away revelation tightened its grip, cutting through layer upon layer of encrusted belief that you had woven over the years to hide you from yourself.

Image Credit: Baltimore Police Department

A Reading of the Poem during a practice session: