i. white staircase,

    i see you when I close my eyes.

    would you show me the truth if you could?

    you say you're my future, my calling--

    but what if I cannot climb you?

ii. the weathered black man in the imax bus

     saw how you haunted my frame,

     acknowledged your hold on my soul.

                how did he know?

                do i wear my nightmares like a shade of lipstick,

                fading but still clinging to my flesh?

iii. "sir?" i ask him.

       "sir, how pliable does your mind become

       when you have nothing but dirt to cushion your fall?

       how heavy does your soul grow

       when you have watched the earth spin so fast,

       turning white snow into crimson flames--

       yet all remains the same?

                 sir,  see the people who scurry past one another,

                 lacking meaning and in no hurry to find it.

                 watch the heavens dance around you,

                 only to disappear into hell's grasp.

                 witness the little boy who cries the river

                 that drowns him.

                                  then try to tell me again

                                  why that white staircase shouldn't haunt me.”