Overgrown Chapel (fragments)

A lonely bird flies up to the water fountain.

I crawl closer to watch it drink. Our eyes meet, and it

backs down, carefully and slowly.

Wait! I haven’t come here to harm you.

In the space between the trees I can see a clone of myself,

But that me is distorted and wrong. I explain to it:

I want to be human and I want to be free

I want to matter not as an idea but as a person people would care for,

As someone who could be heard for once in my life —

And I break down in long, ugly sobs, and the forest shakes with pity —

I never wanted this revenge I never wanted this responsibility I never wanted this guilt

The clone rolls its eyes in response. The clone says, that is naive. I want revenge

But I can only avenge myself through someone else, and isn’t that the greatest tragedy of all?

I nod. That is not right, but I know what its words are supposed to mean.

It doesn’t matter what I came here to do. It only matters what I did.

I stare into the black abyss of the night and see a tiger staring back at me.

I try to explain to it, hey, you know,

We’re in Poland. The forests here are not meant for tigers.

You must have taken a wrong turn somewhere, perhaps?

It scoffs.

I nod and go my way. Live free, my friend,

God of the forest, unwavering flame.

A group of wild rabbits hurriedly flee into a burrow in the sand.

One after the other they jump, and in a snap of a finger they are gone, gone,

Safely invisible under the ground.

A wolf runs onto the meadow a second later and

It curls up under the tree and pretends it hadn’t planned to catch them and it pretends

That it’s not as scared as the rabbits are. Its stomach is empty, but its soul

Has not yet tasted guilt.

Blissfully, its conscience has not even a stain.

The day is long and the sun is bright.

The wolf doesn’t beg. It doesn’t pray. It whines, sadly, like a dog.

Oh, spare me this pathetic act – or do you intend to live this way forever?

If this is the way you were created, blame the one who made you.

I am merely here to oversee this old, abandoned temple.

I have my hands full

Without you to care for on top of it all.

Can’t you see? I was a wolf pup too, once –

We all either face our demise or bring it upon another.