I Am Here

Is this the room inside my heart?

A stage where phantoms play?

A mystery so lonely, yet

I pass it everyday?

The images are fearsome, yet

the appetite succumbs

to eerie, echoed overtures

on more peculiar drums.

A concert hall’s graffitied walls

are splendid in their blight.

This place is where my hope begins

with darkness. And with light.

Where pretty things and gritty things

are ushered through the door

and trespass through the broken glass

and land upon the floor.

The floor, so old and traumatized,

is wilderness to me.

I step to dodge the open wounds

and climb across debris.

While all things here are possible

and nothing’s ever clear,

I move in service of my joy.

I live. And I am here.

I feel the ground, the light, the air,

through splintered works of art.

This court of endless energy -

the room inside my heart.

If these are ashes, dead and bright,

like dusty plains of Mars,

the thought of future phoenixes

propels me to the stars.

My noble stage where phantoms play,

approach it without fear.

Perceive, in you, its hushed refrain:

I live. And I am here.

By Lindsay Surmacz. Photos by J. Aaron Hager (@caspermilque). Special thanks to Chris Ivory and Darrell Holloway for their role in helping us access this "noble stage."