This man
is Everyman
This man
is the expression
of love denied

When the heart breaks
without understanding
it heals with a scar
And when it breaks once more
again without understanding
the scar thickens and grows

Beneath this scarring
the denied wound festers
Within this wound
an infection takes hold
All this below
the tormented
severed and hardened skin
a voice that says
not me
not my fault
I am fine
but you are wrong

There is only one pain
within the human experience
one illness
one loss
one fear
It is the same for every soul
upon the Earth
when it seems we have been separated
from the love of our Source
our God

We may not know
how to give our pain this name
We may not remember
what it was like to feel loved
Or if we do recall
it may seem so far
so stolen
that our terror whispers
you are the outcast
you are the alien
you are the pariah to the chosen ones
you are so flawed
that love cannot touch you
You are so opposite to what is godly
that you may never be
redeemed

This thought
of our central annihilation
is unbearable
especially when it activates the wound
when it penetrates the scar
In the panic of smothering there
being crushed by its great weight
we must push it off our being
we must throw it
as far from our experience
as we possibly can
like a madman
casting the ring of his estranged lover
into the depths of the ocean
we give it away
give it away
give it to whomever
wears the face of all
that we cannot possibly have

This man
is Everyman
this man
is the expression
of Love denied

And for those of us
who may walk more lightly
whose wounds
may not run so deep
For those
whose scars have been tended
for those who have learned to dance
upon busy
pretty feet
We too know this terror
but we have never allowed its name
we have chosen instead
to wear armour
the trappings of righteousness
and blame

Our brokenness
we keep in cages
Our rage
we leak out in words
on pages and screens
never for a moment realizing
that the choice to hate
is the choice to hate
and it always begins within

For there is no man who can destroy another
who has not already killed himself inside
There is no man
who can take away beauty
who has not already drowned
in his own imagined ugliness
until he can no longer breathe the breath
of reason
compassion
or hope

And know this
such a man is not alone
is not unique
is not a rare and terrible anomaly
This man
is Everyman
this man is you
and me

Just as each leaf of paper
in a wise and beautiful book
may catch fire easily
when a match is put to its edge
not one of us is separate
from a path of possible destruction
not one of us is exempt
from the possibility of hate

But there are those
who walk a troubled path
whose soul history pulls them
into the quicksand of fear
and then despair
as their hearts break
and scar
and break
and scar
until they walk amongst us
the living dead
inside our own cities
upon our own streets
under our own roofs
sleeping next to us
in our very own beds

And when the moon rolls
across a clouded sky
and the stars collide
in the games of the gods
then a day comes
and one such sleep-walker
loses the consciousness of his own humanity
and picks up a gun
or a bomb
or the keys
to a white rental truck

Like the tip of a landmine
he has lain just below the surface
of our world
one of many
just waiting
for enough pressure
for his pain to give way
and shatter his being
exploding into all the lives
he takes with him
over and over again

And what do we do?
In our grief and our anxiety
we hate him in return
we wish for him
the very annihilation
he expresses as he detonates
We look at his separation
and we push him away
We see his disconnection
and we sever him from the world
We witness his cruelty
and we are heartless
in our answer
We repeat
the very fractures
which first broke his long-forgotten heart
in the same breath that we wonder
how do we make sure
this never happens again?

There is only One pain
within the human experience
One illness
One loss
One fear
It is simply a matter of
whether or not
we have chosen to seek understanding
and meaning within our suffering
or whether instead
we grow scar upon scar
and every wound we bury
joins the other mines
in the vastness of the danger field
for everytime we push others away
the impulse takes us further
from the very thing
we are so afraid to lose

The truth is
anything is possible
every man and woman is capable
of either profound love
or ultimate hate
Every child is born
with the chance to heal
and every soul
with the power
to become awake
And when one man
expresses the unimaginable
we promise you
this imagining lives in humankind
and it is only through our willingness to see
how we too are Everyman
that the answers
the resolutions
will come

It is when we recognize
that hate is owned by no one
and that Love is where we all began
we may begin to see
that the most heinous of killers
was once an infant
in search of his Mother’s milk
and that he
who in his hate
becomes the most hated
is awakener
to us all

Do not stop
at the assessment of his crimes
do not remain with the mistaken idea
that punishing him
making him suffer
will undo your pain
Do not forget
the part of him
that lives in you
And do not for a moment
think that you are separate
from the wounds and the scars
that brought him
to the end of his world
for his world
is your world
too

Love is always
our only answer
Hate is always
an expression of the lie
that love is gone
And as we walk
the field of mines
in our world of unexpected danger
we must dig deep
to diffuse their power
we must go far below
to the roots of the device
and discover
that we cannot ever end suffering
as we know it
without daring to witness
that Everyman shows us
what we are most afraid
to see

This is the plan
given by the Divine
as we bow our faces
to the mirror
the one which lies shattered
in the form of every innocent
who falls

It is here
we will find the way forward
It is here
to the heart of All
we may return

© AdiKanda 2018