Damascus

Damascus

Haydin Olivia Oechsle

some truths are hard as stars to come to —
only a hit to our mind-numbing power grid
kills artificial suns that blot them out.

all went dark. your soul adjusted to grief
and the absence of light you mistook for Elohim.

the weight of your eyelids trivial in the inky night —
trivial as the shattered lumens of what you’d once called sight.

grief shook the guard rails off your praise —
tore the fake sun from your orbit —

on your back in darkness,
blinking among the fallen shards

born again in darkness,
you beheld the stars.

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Haydin Olivia Oechsle
Photographer & Poet

Haydin is a portrait photographer & poet working near Nashville, TN. You can see her current projects at instagram.com/haydinolivia or haydinolivia.com. Her poetry has also been published in Collage: A Journal of Creative Expression.

Photography by Theo Eilersten