by The Cowl Editor on April 8, 2022
Poetry
by Max Gilman ’25
How do you fix a broken eye?
There must be some way to mend the deteriorating oculi,
In the time we live, there must be a way. There must be a way to fix my broken eye.
Without an eye,
it’s easy to spite and spit
with no direction.
With an eye,
I could scowl at those I hate,
but now I row through limbo aimless, directionless,
eyeless.
What if the eye was tampered before birth?
Can you then muster the tools to find out?
Do you have the strength, the courage, the intellect?
Eyeless,
as those leaders were before me.
How long did it take ME to notice my bottled vision?
If you take Yourself
Out of the Equation, You’ll find They keep Moving with, Or without You.
Or, more so…
Harboring these shores of ill contentment…
At a certain Point, one Must realize, No-one will Care for your Failing eye. Those “people” Will rip
Your tongue out, for good measure.
You, a puzzle piece,
Society, a corrupted card match.
How long have I known?
Oh goodness! My eye! Both of my eyes?! Help! Please, it’s my eyes! I can’t see! Hey! Help, please! I…I hear you there, Hello!? HEY! HELP ME! PLEASE, I can’t see…goodness…I can’t see.. please please, please, PLEASE, I can still hear all of you pass me, please, oh God, please HELP ME SOMEONE
Am I going mad or simply blind?
Where’s the difference, the line?
How many questions can I ask before I have left all of myself a-front a tabletop?
I would beg you to play me in a game of cards,
but I’m blind now, and I have given up on any solution.
Why must I void? Why do you yearn more?
We’re not playing their game.
We once tried piecing together a puzzle and calling it a city, but when we invested ourselves to the task of the puzzle, we found out we weren’t playing their game.
We found the truth,
the dead birds and unturned stones, the lions and their murderous gain, the telephone poles painted white, the men and their weapons.
We found playing cards,
all double-sided and duplicated.
We found blood and a broken puzzle set,
a puzzle set,
devoid of any fitting piece we have sickly become.