The Things I See Poem by Nadia Daniel

Sometimes when I gaze out
across the blue ocean and sea
those times when I gaze out
I wander what I really see
the black jutting rocks
horns on a monsters head?
The bounding foam
the white fingers of the dead?
The murky shapes below
tendrils of no-care?
The floating seaweed
strands of lost hair?
The rogue surface
a storm rising?
The elegant cliffs
beings, enemy sizing?
And I turn and look back
across the deserted plains
these times when I look back
from telling me, I wonder what my sight refrains
slashes of grass
green brass?
Dying flowers
living powers?
A tinkling stream
a cottage's beam?
I begin to doubt the faces around me
The spirit inside me
The instinct beside me
The sights that I see
The souls that I face
Of different statures
of a different race
A different mind
a different place
suddenly the stars inside the indigo
which used to guide me faithfully
seem to go
the moon under which I was born
an oval full of pearl
a crescent of a naked flame
seems to shrivel and curl
what's left?

When you doubt your very mind
when you doubt the slightest find
when you doubt all bad and kind

what's left?
When your eyes are creatures that betray
When your senses are there to slay
when the shattered remains of a broken soul stay

what's left?
When those you love fall and die
when every tear doesn't cry
when shadows blind the mind and sigh

what's left?
Ghosts of foes and shimmering figures
haunt every day- or is it dream?
memories or nightmares flash before your eyes
nothing is what it first will seem

and when the colors fade
you scream aloud
colors are
the savior, and shroud
strands of burning sulfur
the brandished gold of black
entanglements of scarlet red
spilled droplets form a turquoise crack
a fine net of brightened emerald
sleek stickiness of dripping yellow
crash and foam of fighting groan
heart's soul sweet and mellow
cloying glimpses of depth-less indigo
shades and layers of pale pink
the color of long passed rusty blood
into the ground to sink
what's left when the world is black
or the blank of soulless white
or a mix; a wash of meaningless grey
no matter how misleading
who can bear to lose their sight
admit it; you are mad
or maybe you just see
the plain stark truth, the evil being
of treacherous reality.