One Man's Hyde / Another Man's Savior

The monster awoke this morning:

broke loose from the cage

and is wandering the streets

of some anonymous small town

in Northwest Illinois.

And I will not chase him down again.

He and I and the world are all better

when he is not knocked out, stowed away,

forgotten in some dark corner of my Id

left to languish in some gray dream.

You cannot starve / what does not survive / on bread alone.

He greeted me in the mirror, wild haired

monstrously bushy eyebrows, deep set unrelenting eyes,

the face of someone who might appear familiar

if anyone has been paying any attention

at all. Have you been paying attention? At all?

You've all gone and done it, he says. / Waited one day too many / and now, and now

and now...

It's the anticipation that makes him pause

because he knows, lumbering the street,

looking oddly like a baboon on the hunt,

he will attract stares, and gasps,

and he will, undoubtedly, offend some

old farmer's wife or another

who does not understand there is more

to man than the collected hours he works

and whittles and the little bit he dies

each and every day. And some farmer

or another will be offended, too – because

they will never know the freedom

of walking through the world

without carrying the fear

that someone, somewhere

has found the secret to happiness

without waiting on god, on grace,

or on some nicely written obituary

outlining the predetermined brevity

of his long laborious days.

It's the anticipation that draws him out

and into the street – coming soon

to a store front, coffee shop, bar, or street corner near you.

He carries doom in one pocket / salvation in another

and you will not know

which he might be inclined to share

until you look him in the eye

and show him the the glimmering seat

of your soul, share the warmth of your heart

and accept without question –

even though you might find his grin

just a tad disconcerting.

One Man's Hyde / Another Man's Savior by Mick Parsons