For Goya

I look in the doorway. Empty.
Closed doors. Blind windows.
It's dark inside. Outside.

The night freezes. The bed is a cold, hard stone.
My heart refuses to close my eyes.
I close them. They open.

Sounds. They seek me out.
Footsteps on gravel.
Applause for a matador.
A paper torn.
Names.
Dying leaves.
Incoherent pleas.
Wailing violins.
Clawing into my mind. Tearing me apart.

The voices. The visions.
My paltry afflictions.
If only I could wish them away. If only.

There is a stranger in the mirror tonight.
Do I know him? Do I?
I have his eyes.
And he has my face.

Contented with his two-dimensional existence.
Unperturbed by the silences that prowl around him.
Untroubled by the travesties of this world.
Blind to the burdens he knows not.
Silent. Within his lines. Within himself.

If only I could be him.
I am everything he is, yet I am not.
I am more.
More than ink. More than lines.
More than I need to be. More than I want to be.

If only I could subtract myself from him and just be.
If only I could know what not to know.
If only I could be a figure in ink.
If only I could be a paper.
If only I could be him.
If only I could be.
If only I could.
If only I.
If only.